Sugar on a Stick/Hardware

A SoaS Hardware Effort

What's this about

This attempt has been started shortly after the SoaS beta release on April 22nd and is focussed on tracking hardware compatibility with newer SoaS versions. The overall goal of this effort is to gather information about issues with various hardware configurations using SoaS. So if you just came across an issue or want to help us by providing your hardware specs, please follow these instructions.

What we're doing

We're using the Smolt project to keep information about the various systems. Smolt is a hardware profiler and has been introduced with Fedora 7. Since then, also openSUSE has joined the project. We're working on creating an identifier for SoaS in the Smolt database.

Smolt basically helps you to submit your hardware information to a place, where people like us developers can check them out. Smolt development is hosted here and if you're worried about your privacy, you can have a look at Smolt's privacy policy here. Note that you can remove your hardware information at any time - instructions for this are also listed below!

Next Steps

So. What's next? Here're the instructions:

  1. First of all, you'll need to download SoaS, which already includes Smolt. Please use the latest snapshot and not the beta for this! Here's the direct link: http://download.sugarlabs.org/soas/snapshots/2/Soas2-200906221314.iso
  2. Boot into SoaS and start the Terminal Activity.
  3. Now you're ready to submit your hardware specs. For this, just call (as root): smoltSendProfile
  4. It will ask you again if you're sure and will also give you a link to your profile and an admin password then. Please keep those!

Now that you've received the link to your hardware profile, please add it to the table below, as this will help us a lot to get an overview on which hardware SoaS is used on where issues occur. Note that with your admin password, you'll be also able to rate your experience with SoaS regarding the hardware support on your profile page. You can also provide it if you're filing a bug report on dev.sl.o.

What if you want to remove your information?

Just type in the terminal (again as root): smoltDeleteProfile

Measuring Responsiveness

We are trying to get a handle on what hardware produces a snappy experience, and what produces a sluggish, but acceptable experience. For slow machines, we are curious whether they could be upgraded by adding memory (potentially scavenged from other donated computers) or add a USB 2.0 card (<$10). We are imagining getting a good number of donated, older computers, and we are thinking ahead about how to turn these into acceptable computers that kids could take home.

Please report boot-up speed and how long it takes to open common activities for the 2nd time. Some of them are slow on the first load. Turtle Art, Browse and Write are good ones to look at.

Running dstat -at --output dstat.log in a terminal can be helpful.

Program Members

name smolt notes
Sebastian Dziallas http://www.smolts.org/client/show/pub_cf5334e9-3337-49cd-a7af-747b77bbdda1
Tom Gilliard http://www.smolts.org/client/show/pub_cf76bc48-7208-438b-a17a-6a6e94b8b230
James Simmons http://www.smolts.org/client/show/pub_9bd8878e-aefa-4304-ac55-c87738969fdd used boot diskette, Browse wouldn't start.
Mathieu Bridon http://www.smolts.org/client/show/pub_27aeaf15-0c96-45bf-b9db-01fe5772492c
Tom Gilliard http://www.smolts.org/client/show/pub_ec31848d-9ef1-4d51-a7ce-17b7998113f2 no wireless
Luya Tshimbalanga http://smolts.org/client/show/pub_922b7f43-db28-4c56-8107-c95516dc2c59 Freeze when multiple activities are open, audio and video not working on Record and TamTam
Tom Gilliard http://www.smolts.org/client/show/pub_34858d7b-dda5-4fc0-bcca-57ade97d6048 Fedora 11 beta with Sugar Desktop wired
James Simmons http://www.smolts.org/client/show/pub_3aab3f17-ab4f-4883-a152-de25125d86bc used boot diskette, everything works, word highlighting on Read Etexts lags behind spoken words.
Eduardo NH Silva http://www.smolts.org/client/show/pub_fe227e13-5847-494c-b96b-cfe2484aab90 Acer Aspire 3003LMI, no wireless (besides, it needs a proprietary firmware)
Frederick Grose http://www.smolts.org/client/show/pub_ae2467bf-9802-4dfe-9849-69922fd9082b VirtualBox2.2.0 on Jackalope64 host
Tom Gilliard http://www.smolts.org/client/show/pub_b69296a9-4326-465e-b3e2-99963dfe75c3 Soas2-200905031329 Live USB Creator Dell 520n
Frederick Grose http://www.smolts.org/client/show/pub_7618393d-bf0c-4227-901a-0bb3f5cfc982 USB stick prepared with livecd-iso-to-disk.sh on SoaS running in VirtualBox2.2.0
Caroline Meeks Dell http://www.smolts.org/client/show/pub_fa888e3a-3c29-44dc-b1cb-e28be354f9c5
Walter Bender http://www.smolts.org/client/show/pub_270553cf-91ed-495c-834c-521da796d345 Magalâes Classmate: no sound
Frederick Grose http://www.smolts.org/client/show/pub_ee2f82d0-f863-454f-9d72-b1ee60fb3c65 USB stick prepared with LiveUSB-creator3.6.5 on Vista32
Elena Grandi http://www.smolts.org/client/show/pub_a3bddcf4-644e-43dd-b0a1-b84b5c3b7201 Soas2-200905031329.iso prepared with livecd-iso-to-disk.sh
Frederick Grose http://www.smolts.org/client/show/pub_f2cf5101-8203-4941-be03-408deedd03e5 soas-beta (0414) installed in VirtualBox2.2.2 disc on Win7-64 with onboard livecd-iso-to-disk
Tom Gilliard http://www.smolts.org/client/show/pub_8b055063-0284-4dc3-99cc-ed3a3fb98e1a Fedora 11Preview Gnome with Sugar Desktop on Virtual box 2.2.2
Nicolas Thill http://www.smolts.org/client/show/pub_3f863f30-dc41-4cc9-b236-8ab41295da00 Lenovo X61 running SoaS release 1 (snapshot)
Dave Bauer http://www.smolts.org/client/show/pub_56a19e3b-42b9-4e2e-9461-09e674f431e5 Asus eeePC 901 SoaS 20090524 LiveUSB Creator from F11 Preview
<your name here> <your smolt link here> <your comments here>

Upcoming Improvements

We're working on getting Smolt integrated in a Sugar Activity to ease the process of submitting the information.