[Csped] Power2People Goals
Zain Shamsi
zshamsi at Trinity.edu
Fri Feb 2 20:54:12 CST 2007
Yeah, any Linux distribution which provides a highly configurable
installation would work well - like Gentoo. There are also other small
Linux distros which we might want to take a look at...like some of these
mentioned here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MiniLinux
They usually come with a bunch of simple applications like a word
processor / spreadsheet program / browser etc. and are meant to run on
systems with very low resources
As for the portability issue - we might want to consider that if we end
up building a prototype, it would be a significantly different
experience - in terms of price and complexity to build a portable system
as compared with one that isnt. I like Tim's idea on this - as it doesnt
have to have built in display capability. Possibly a MicroATX form
factor which can still allow standardized components..but of course the
prices would have to be looked into.
I am pretty comfortable with the hardware as I've built a few systems
before, so I would rather work on the software portion - OS / Applications
- Zain
Glenn Kavanagh wrote:
> Tim hits on a very good point about the operating system. However, I
> would say that using distro like Gentoo would be even better than
> Ubunutu. There is a large support for Gentoo, and you can compile
> everything (applications included) to run faster for your specific
> platform (processor). Usually this would prove to be a difficult task
> for someone inexperienced with Linux, but we are trying to make a
> system that receives updates on it's own. Because we are building
> identical machines to distribute, we can compile all of the new
> applications where ever the central server is located and then allow
> the users to download the newly compiled updates from our Master Server.
>
> Along with this, GNOME and KDE are likely out of the question because
> they do have a fairly big memory footprint. Xfce would be a good
> choice because it is much lighter weight, it can run anything written
> to run for the GTK+ toolkit (GNOME), and is also user friendly. If we
> get desperate for resources, we could always go with just a window
> manager (e.g. FVWM), instead of an entire desktop environment. If we
> chose this route, we wouldn't be able to run Open Office and would
> have to rely on AbiWord and an equivalent Spreadsheet application.
>
> As far as portability goes, it seems that the more portable, the more
> expensive the system is going to be (see current desktop price vs. and
> equivalent laptop price). This would be one of the first problems
> that the hardware team would need to look into.
>
> >From the power and network access point, I think that we could take
> two different approaches here. One, assume that we have both of
> these. Dr. Howland mentioned that we could assume the environment
> that we are working in has certain amenities. Power and a network
> connection (wired/less) could be those things. The other would be to
> take one or both and come up with a plan to provide them for the
> users. I think that designing a way to efficiently provide a
> networking solution could even be one of our team's goals.
>
> As for restoring the machine to its original state, that could pretty
> easily be done over the network... I think. Essentially we just save
> the users' home directories and overwrite any files that are out of
> sink with the state they should be in by default.
>
> So for the teams, I was thinking something along these lines:
>
> 1. Hardware
> 2. OS
> 3. Applications
> 4. Network Infrastructure (this could include the main server and
> distributing updates)
>
> Preference: working on the OS portion.
>
> Glenn
>
> Tim Nunamaker wrote:
>
> I think it's fairly obvious that some Linux distro is going to be our
> best bet for the OS/software. As Dr. Howland mentioned, I think Ubuntu
> would be a pretty good choice. I've only been using Linux for a few
> months, and I've only used Fedora and Ubuntu for extended periods of
> time, but I do know that Ubuntu has a lot of community support and I
> haven't really had any major hardware configuration problems. Other
> distro's like Slackware would simply be too difficult for inexperienced
> users to operate.
>
> In particular, I think Xubuntu looks pretty appealing:
> http://www.xubuntu.org/
>
> >From the main page: "Xubuntu is a complete GNU/Linux based operating
> system with an Ubuntu base. It is lighter on system requirements and
> tends to be more efficient than Ubuntu with GNOME or KDE, since it uses
> the Xfce Desktop environment, which makes it ideal for old or low-end
> machines, thin-client networks, or for those who would like to get more
> performance out of their hardware."
>
> Sounds like just what we need. The only disadvantage to using it vs
> GNOME or KDE that I can think of is that it's less mainstream and so
> there is less support and it also wouldn't support all of the KDE/Gnome
> applications so well. On the other hand, I think that's a fair trade off
> considering our design limitations.
>
> The huge benefit that I see to using Linux is the availability of so
> much free software. I can't think of anything we would want to put on
> the machines that we couldn't get in a matter of minutes, especially
> using a package manager such as Yum or Synaptic. This will be an
> especially useful feature for the end user, who will probably have
> limited access to software otherwise. In addition, major Linux distros
> usually have pretty good support for languages.
>
> Now that I've got that out of the way... I think Joey question about
> portability is an important one. This is going to affect not only the
> hardware that we can use (as well as its cost), but also how we deploy
> the units as a whole. If we go the route of building desktops with big
> towers, then for any kind of update capability the user will most likely
> have to have some kind of local network/internet connection, or some
> means of transporting a big computer to a location where he/she can
> access one.
>
> I think a laptop would be a bit on the extreme side as far as
> portability goes. If we can possibly squeeze the size down to something
> like the Dell machines in the library, then they will be transportable
> but can still use some standard components. In addition, the machines
> don't have to have built in displays to be portable. In the case of Dr.
> Howland's example, the school, maybe students can bring their computers
> home and plug an old 15" CRT into them, which might not be too expensive
> (depending on the cost to deliver a bulky item to a distant location).
>
> I think the best way to approach this project is to, at the least,
> assume the following:
>
> Users will periodically have access to power (maybe they can charge a
> battery).
> Users will periodically have access to either a: the internet, or b: a
> network with software updates available.
>
> Joey mentioned the possibility of connecting the machine to a more
> powerful machine for updates. I think this is an important point to
> consider. Maybe we can design a system where a central, powerful machine
> makes up for some of the weaknesses of the smaller ones, which can
> connect to it. If anyone can think of specific applications of this,
> please chime in.
>
> I also think we need a way of restoring the machine to its original
> state. I think this can be easily done by distributing a few CDs or DVDs
> with hard disk images on them to locations where these machines will be
> deployed, and if the system needs to be wiped, it can be easily done by
> loading the image onto the drive. Since every computer will have
> identical components, this should work pretty well.
>
> Sorry for the long read, I'll get to the point and give the criteria
> which I think are important:
>
> 1) Software usability/maintainability/availability
> 2) Non-bulky hardware which will allow the machine to be transported
> 3) Some form of AC power
> 4) A network adapter for a network/internet connection
> 5) Ability to restore the machine to its original state
>
> As far as my personal preferences go, I'd prefer working with the OS and
> selecting software packages, but hardware would be good too.
>
> Everyone should feel free to make comments about anything and everything.
>
> Tim
>
> On Thu, 2007-02-01 at 17:17 -0600, John Howland wrote:
>
>
> On Thu, 1 Feb 2007, Joey wrote:
>
>
>
> Ill start with the question. Are we looking for a portable system?
> Clearly there are pros and cons to a portable machine.
>
>
> All of the choices/criteria are yours to determine. Portability adds
> (probably) to overall cost and complexity. However, portability could
> be defined to be easily movable, but not operable when not connected to
> some sort of power grid. For example, suppose the target user was a
> school setting where, for security reasons, the machines had to be
> moved to a secure locker, but when they were in use they could be connected
> to a power source.
>
>
>
> Things our system should be capable of:
>
> 1. Connecting to a network for weather information, email, web browsing
> and so on.
> 2. Word processing
>
>
> Spreadsheet?
>
>
>
> 3. Multi-user capability, with extremely limited access to normal user
> accounts (the less access the average user has, the less maintenance the
> system is likely to need).
> 4. Very basic and easy interface... much of what is available in open
> source operating systems will be completely useless to the average user
> of these systems.
>
>
> Gnome seems to be most linux distro's choice, but there are lots of lighter
> weight gui's. See Ubuntu for example.
>
>
>
> 5. Update capability, likely over a local connection, possibly to a
> central, more powerful machine.
> 6. Some sort of method to completely reset the system to its original
> configuration, in case of extreme malfunction. Obviously the easier the
> better
> 7. Install that can be easily changed for locality. Language, special
> applications and so on.
>
> I don't have much to say about hardware, it might be best to figure out
> what we want to be able to do and then build our system around that. It
>
>
> User requirements! Radical! UML might even be useful here to get a handle
> users.
>
>
>
> would be a shame to build a system, only to realize later it is
> completely useless for our goals.
>
> Doesn't matter to me what I end up doing, Im more than willing to take
> any job nobody else wants to do, although there are enough interesting
> topics that I don't see that being a huge problem...
>
> I hope to see more of these by tomorrow! See you all in Software
> Engineering HAHAHA (Im sure we will have loads of fun :))
>
> Joey
>
>
>
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> _______________________________________________________________
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> Computer Science email: jhowland at ariel.cs.trinity.edu
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