On Thu, 2008-09-04 at 01:24 -0400, Greg Dekoenigsberg wrote:
On Wed, 3 Sep 2008, Jeremy Katz wrote:
Nor will any existing spin fit in 1GB of internal flash.
We fit on 700 meg CDs, so it's definitely doable. There's nothing that would fundamentally prevent the way we do things for the cds to also function off of jffs2. Two different compressions is kind of silly, though.
It is also a performance killer; you're taking a slow processor and having it decompress twice. We need to get to the bottom of why the current spins are so slow off USB/SD as quickly as possible, while Daniel's native install on SD is very usable.
Unfortunately, jffs2 does not have a way to say "don't compress a file", though dwmw2 has talked about this from time to time.
Not having wear leveling on bare NAND is a non-starter, if there is any substantial write use. We may need to page to make a viable system, and will need to page to a file.
Also, I did state "off of a USB stick or SD card". I actually think that in a lot of ways, that's better because it means that we can not worry about using any of the built-in flash leaving all of it for use with Sugar and then wanting to run a joyride build, etc.
In my latest discussions with Kim, it seems unlikely that we will be able to get something to the hardware manufacturers in time for an "onboard" solution anyway.
But olpc-update allows a late-binding: you can install bits later with no hardware cost. I'm pretty sure a small enough spin is not very hard to do.
The latest discussions I had with her centered around putting together an aftermarket solution that "just works", and making it possible for G1G1 folks to purchase that solution when they get the laptop.
Which implies that we should be focusing on USB/SD for now -- but Jim, you may want to validate that thinking inside the walls at 1cc.
I will, though this is not my current understanding from previous conversations; it would make our lives somewhat easier and time is short; we've lost some weeks due to Fedora's mis-adventures, as we're still getting up to speed and have needed more of Jeremy's time than we've been able to get.
Having something that can run viably without USB or SD gives Linux a cost advantage over windows.
I'm also very concerned about applications selection that is so heavyweight that its performance will be poor: e.g. The stock Fedora desktop includes apps that will get us into pretty immediate trouble in RAM use, I think (e.g. evolution). I don't think an xfce desktop is what the general market will bear, sufficient though it is for hackers. - Jim