Features/SoaS Creation Station

Summary

A Custom Remix of Gnome Desktop with livecd-tools and spin-kickstarts

It can be either a liveCD or An Install CD.

This is a Sub-Project of Remixability Feature. It cannot be labeled as Soas-remix as it is not intended to be used in a Classroom (per Mel)

Targeted Audience: Teachers, Experienced Users, and Deployments.

• This Feature will allow Users to Make Custom Respins from edited .ks files.

• It requires installation to a Hard Disk or 16Gb USB to allow Building of Custom-Remix.iso files

This feature proposes:

• The development of a page on the SL wiki for highlighting classroom-made remixes, their kickstart files, and details on their usage

• Edits to the Customization Guide version for Mangolassi that reflect these changes

Owner

• Name: [| Thomas Gilliard]

• Email: satellit <at> bendbroadband <dot> com

Current status

• Targeted release: (Soas v4 Mangolassi)
• Last updated: [| Thomas Gilliard] 10:15, 3 August 2010 (PST)
• Percentage of completion: 10%

Detailed Description

Wiki page

The creation of a page that:

• Describes remixes
• Makes it clear that remixes are unsupported
• Links to the Customization Guide as the canonical resource on how to make remixes
• Lists existing community-made remixes so that people can see and try what others have created, with each remix listing having...
  • The .iso available for download
  • The .ks available for download
  • A blog or a link to some resource that describes how this remix is being used in a live teaching setting

The page might look something like this:

+---------------------------------------------+
|           Unofficial SoaS Remixes           |
|                                             |
| +-----------------+    +---------+---+----+ |
| | SoaS Mangolassi |    |remix #01|.ks|blog| |
| | summary         |    +---------+---+----+ |
| |                 |    |remix #02|.ks|blog| |
| | <link to main   |    +---------+---+----+ |
| | SoaS project    |    |remix foo|.ks|blog| |
| | page>           |    +---------+---+----+ |
| +-----------------+    |remix bar|.ks|blog| |
|                        +---------+---+----+ |
|  description of        | Your remix here! | |
|  remixes, including    |                  | |
|  clear text on how     | Here's how:      | |
|  they are UNSUPPORTED  | <link to Custom- | |
|                        | ization guide>   | |
|                        +------------------+ |
+---------------------------------------------+

Sample remixes

In order to pre-populate the #Wiki page, we would follow the Customization Guide's instruction (Draft Content) [1] to create and post remixes for 2-4 deployments before Mangolassi's official release date. These would be specific, teacher-driven remixes that would be used in live deployments.

The "blog" link for each of these remixes would go to a description - written either by or in conjunction with the teacher - on why the remix was designed that way, and what their plans for classroom usage are. ("Ms. Smith created this remix for her middle-school Spanish-language classes with the following localization and activities so she could do the following things with Sugar in her syllabus...")

Image-Database

Provide and advertise an experimental remix image-database. The feature owner takes responsibility for accepting emails with .ks files attached, uploading the resulting images, and responding to those emails with a link to a built .iso of the remix generated by that .ks.

The mechanism of this back-and-forth is up to the feature owner to determine, so long as the mechanism (and the unsupported nature of the remixes generated by it) are clear. The current proposal is as follows:

Please send e-mail to:

To: soas@lists.sugarlabs.org
Subject: [Custom KS]-{Name of your kickstart file}
*Attach your Custom.ks file*
PLEASE INCLUDE THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION in e-mail:
Sugar Version                    :                  
(0.82; 0.86.x; 0.88.x; 0.89.x)
Country / Deployment             :                      
Build system fedora version      :                    
Number of USB's in Deployment    :  
PC/Netbooks used                 :             
Notes and Any Bug No's submitted :

Customization guide edits

The Customization Guide would be edited to reflect the above changes, and reviewed and tested by a few new remixes for ease-of-use.

Benefit to Sugar

Promotes our already-existing technical flexibility to customize Soas-v4 for Deployments and individuals.

• add/delete desired applications to standard set on .iso

• Targeted uses:

Multiple Language versions (Including EU Languages?)

e-book reader

Older students

Games

• Shared kickstart files e-mailed to SOAS and posted to wiki allow others to learn how to make a .ks file and try various remixes.
• Posted links to a Catalog of prebuilt remix.iso's, with a description of their use and contents, allows less skilled users to use them.

Scope

The technical ability to create remixes has worked for a long time.

all entries labled xxxx-remix were built using these instructions

http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Talk:Features/Soas_V4/Install_Test_Table#Test_results

The implementation of this feature depends on:

• the editing of the Customization Guide
• the creation a wiki page
• the running of a Remix Image Building Service for 2 months after release

UI Design

N/A

How To Test

Features/SoaS Creation Station/Testing

User Experience

Wider choices for users of Soas-v4 due to ability to Customize.

Dependencies

None that I know of.

Contingency Plan

Not Needed

Documentation

http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Talk:Features/Soas_V4/Remixability#Build_Your_Own_Remix

Release Notes

None Needed

Comments and Discussion

• See discussion tab for this feature