scratch team mailing list archive

[Derek O'Connell <doc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 11/02/2010 04:06, Bert Freudenberg wrote:
> On 10.02.2010, at 14:55, Derek O'Connell wrote
>   
>> On 10/02/2010 19:31, Amos Blanton wrote:
>>     
>>> Re: other distros. I have heard a few requests for a Red Hat compatible
>>> version. I think the next generation OLPC will have a RH based OS?
>>>       
> Even the current OLPC generation is based on that. The VM Scratch is using comes from an RPM.
>
>   
>>>  I was
>>> thinking of trying "Alien" package converter (from deb -> rpm) to see if
>>> that would be a good solution. I asked a few community members to try it but
>>> haven't heard back.
>>>       
> Not a solution for OLPC running Sugar, which requires its activities to be packaged as a ".xo" bundle. You would only need an RPM if you want to run this under a different UI than Sugar (e.g. Gnome, which the XO 1.5 supports in addition to Sugar).
>   
>> Alien should work but it's a long time since I touched Red Hat or
>> derivatives so I'm not sure what is included in their std distribution
>> or if they follow the Linux Standards Base (for file locations at least,
>> probably do). The low dependency of the Squeak VM means problems on RH
>> should be relatively easy to fix.
>>     
> See above. Squeak VM is packaged already.
>   

Thanks for the reminder. I know very little about the Debian packaging &
distribution process let alone RPM, though I guess they are two separate
processes and the RPM package has it's own maintainer/s?


>> More generally, wouldn't targeting Debian itself have the best chance of
>> being pushed to a wider audience since most distro's are derivatives of
>> Debian?
>>     
> I was surprised you targeted Ubuntu, indeed. 
>   
>>> To sum up, supporting other Linux distros would be great, but the primary
>>> goal is plain old Ubuntu. But if Gstreamer made it possible to hook into
>>> lots of other options, so much the better.
>>>
>>>       
>> GStreamer is on the top of my list for alternatives with the caveat that
>> it may not avoid PA/ALSA problems (but as we agree looks better
>> maintained and hopefully will). I have not looked very deep yet but it
>> looks like other alternatives, such as libao, mainly only deal with
>> playback not recording. Ideally any viable alternative comes as
>> standard, in Ubuntu at least. Not sure if libSDL satisfies that criteria
>> but I will check that also. I don't suppose adding a dependency will be
>> a big deal if it eradicates sounds issues once and for all... well at
>> least for my lifetime ;-)
>>     
> For Etoys we use PA's OSS emulation which works much better than using PA itself.
>
> GStreamer is not really meant to be used for generated sound. It's more of a media decoding framework. That's what John McIntosh's GStreamer plugin for Squeak does.
>
> As for DBus, I made a changeset that makes it work in current Scratch. It's part of my sugarization work. What would you need it for though?
>   

In the first instance receiving and reacting sensibly to critical system
messages, eg, "battery-low". Could otherwise be useful in the future for
greater platform integration and for communicating with other
applications. It seems to be almost standard now to send hw sensor data
over DBus... instant thought... does the XO send a msg when the screen
is folded back into tablet mode? I will check myself later but as an
aside this specific example is also related to Squeak/Scratch on devices
with fold away kb's (also tablets of course), ie, provision of a virtual
kb possibly triggered by such hw event/s. "Net-tops" with touch screens
also come to mind, where I suppose the USB connected kb might be
disconnected at any instant. Sorry for the detour ;-)

Reminds me I have been patiently waiting for free time to play with my
xmas present which was two TI Chronos watches (link below). If I wanted
data from these in Squeak/Scratch it would also be via DBus. I will let
y'all guess why I had to have two and not just one ;-))

http://www.ti-estore.com/merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=EZ430-Chronos-915

**** Btw, I'm just checking mail archives and getting confused. Did
anyone see my reply to Bert's email from 2nd Feb that ended with...

>Nice! Do you possibly have changesets for this to migrate it to a
current image?
>
>Also, I just noticed that linux@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx is an alias for the
launchpad list? Had me confused ...

...I replied to linux@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx with the change-sets attached but cannot seem to locate the post in mail archives. Please let me know if not. I will repost after this email just to be sure. The attachments may be redundant if Bert has already done the migration but I don't like the fact that it appears I have not bothered replying. Btw, Bert, where can I get your version?

@Amos: I guess we are now all using linux@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ? Is there a way to combine/ redirect Assembla postings to same address? Maybe it is already done. I put a posting up there just recently about Camera controls and one way back querying Scratch on closure VM but now wondering if anyone is reading Assembla list.


>> You mentioned previously about utilising mainstream VM, is there any
>> progress or plan for that? Is the Scratch plug-in going to be pushed
>> upstream?
>>     
> You need to communicate with the VM maintainers about that. Also read this thread:
>
> http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/pipermail/vm-dev/2009-September/003182.html
>   

I realise your comment was probably aimed at Amos but I was simply
looking for a date when it might happen. Is the licence issue resolved?

-D

> - Bert -
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~scratch
> Post to     : scratch@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~scratch
> More help   : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
>