[Sugar-devel] GSoC projects

[James Cameron]

I've often thought of making such an application, because of the
difficulties that some people report with downloading files and
putting them on USB drive.

The problem with an application is one may end up having to explain
how to download the application; transferring the issue from the
original problem to an application that was supposed to fix the
problem.

In the meanwhile, I have been working the overall problem as a
training and experience issue, and maintaining a structured
document:

	http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Download

Some further ideas for what your application might do:

1.  the initial download,

2.  resuming an interrupted download,

3.  verification of download using md5sum or other hashes,

4.  media verification, reading back the files or image to check that
writing was successful and the media still works.

I've no evidence of proportion of people who have problems with
downloading files and putting them on media; perhaps it is a
non-problem.

A more correct approach would be to do research and survey of people
before and after such an application is made available.  A GSoC
project could be padded out with this research, and easily fill three
months.

A systems engineering view would change the product so that the files
don't have to be written to media in any particular way.  That's what
we did with the original XO laptops, but SoaS bootable images are
different because of the typical PC firmware being so exacting.

On Thu, Mar 19, 2015 at 03:54:02PM +0000, Iain Brown Douglas wrote:
> On Thu, 2015-03-19 at 12:12 -0300, Gonzalo Odiard wrote:
> > Hi Iain!
> > GSoC project are for 3 months of work for a university student.
> > Do you think that script imply that amount of work? 
> No :)
> > What should be the use case? Auto duplicate SoaS?
> > Reagrds,
> > 
> The use case is in the field of Auto duplicate SoaS, yes.
> 
> SoaS Loader [2] is horribly clunky, *but* it is a way to get the
> instructions where they are accessible.
> 
> Perhaps I should instead ask here whether anyone would work with me on
> SoaS Loader to make such a script.
> 
> Iain
> 
> > Gonzalo
> > 
> > On Thu, Mar 19, 2015 at 11:38 AM, Iain Brown Douglas
> > <iain at browndouglas.plus.com> wrote:
> >         Hi All,
> >         
> >         I wonder if anyone would think it appropriate (or
> >         inappropriate) to add this idea to Google Summer of Code [1]?
> >         
> >         To write a script for use with Sugar on a Stick, which would
> >         probe the capacity of an
> >         inserted USB stick,and deliver the livecd-iso-to-disk command
> >         on
> >         confirmation by the user. The command would suit the
> >         aspirations of SoaS Loader [2].
> >         
> >         Regards,
> >         
> >         Iain
> >         
> >         [1] http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Summer_of_Code/2015
> >         [2] http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/SoaS_Loader
> >         
> >         _______________________________________________
> >         Sugar-devel mailing list
> >         Sugar-devel at lists.sugarlabs.org
> >         http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > -- 
> > Gonzalo Odiard
> > 
> > SugarLabs - Software for children learning 
> > 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Sugar-devel mailing list
> Sugar-devel at lists.sugarlabs.org
> http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel

-- 
James Cameron
http://quozl.linux.org.au/