Release notes/13.2.6

Overview

13.2.6 is an OLPC OS release. The target platforms are XO-1, XO-1.5, XO-1.75 and XO-4.

Features

• based on Sugar 0.107.0,
• refresh of activities, Help-20, Measure-52, Paint-65, Read-117, and Record-102.

Fixes

• shutdown or restart may have hung, <trac>12813</trac>, and much older <trac>12593</trac>,
• switch desktop no longer shows an extra restart button, use the check (tick) icon to restart,
• About my Computer was very slow to display, <trac>12856</trac>,
• when duplicating an activity in View Source, Sugar may crash,
• language control panel may not work, #4878,
• language setting may be lost by power failure, #4878,
• sometimes the busy cursor remained busy after Sugar has started up, #4873,
• journal entries without a MIME type could not be copied,
• sometimes journal entry menus could not be used, #4887,
• journal and activity list views would scroll too slowly, #4852,
• clear the journal search with the escape key, #4892,
• hide the battery in the frame when the battery is removed.
• for XO-1.75 and XO-4, audio controls may be lost or set to silence,
• for XO-1.75, the frame audio icon was missing, <trac>12867</trac>,
• for XO-1, the Simple English Wikipedia may have been downloaded, despite not having enough room for it, and despite it not being included in the build, <trac>12911</trac>,

Installation

XO-4

How to install signed build 18 of release 13.2.6 on XO-4.

The build is installed to the internal storage device. You will need a USB drive or Secure Digital card of at least 1 GB capacity, but only for the duration of the installation. We recommend the drive be FAT formatted, but other formats are supported, see how to prepare a drive for use by the firmware for more details.

ALL USER DATA WILL BE ERASED FROM THE LAPTOP!

• Prepare the USB or SD drive:
  • Download 32018o4.zd, see How to Download,
  • Save the file to the top directory of the drive,
  • Download fs4.zip,
  • Save the file to the top directory of the same drive,
  • Check that the drive contains at least the two files fs4.zip and 32018o4.zd.
• Prepare the laptop:
  • Make a copy of any data you wish to keep,
  • Check that the battery is inserted and locked,
  • Check that the power cord is in place and the battery indicator is green,
  • Turn off the laptop, unless it is already off,
  • Insert the USB drive into any USB port on the laptop,

• Start installing:
  • Hold down all four game keys above the power button,
  • Turn on the laptop,
  • Wait for the message Release the game keys to continue,
  • Release the game keys.

Installation progress will be displayed. Green colour will fill grey blocks. It will take about five minutes. Once finished, the laptop will reboot automatically. You may remove the USB or SD drive during or after the reboot.

The USB or SD drive can be used on other laptops. If installation progress is not displayed, you may be running an old firmware version which does not recognise the fs4.zip file. Please rename fs4.zip to fs.zip and try again. If you see a message Boot failed then either:

• the USB or SD drive has not been properly prepared, or;
• the firmware is out of date and should be updated (see Firmware).

XO-1.75

How to install signed build 18 of release 13.2.6 on XO-1.75.

The build is installed to the internal storage device. You will need a USB drive or Secure Digital card of at least 1 GB capacity, but only for the duration of the installation. We recommend the drive be FAT formatted, but other formats are supported, see how to prepare a drive for use by the firmware for more details.

ALL USER DATA WILL BE ERASED FROM THE LAPTOP!

• Prepare the USB or SD drive:
  • Download 32018o2.zd, see How to Download,
  • Save the file to the top directory of the drive,
  • Download fs2.zip,
  • Save the file to the top directory of the same drive,
  • Check that the drive contains at least the two files fs2.zip and 32018o2.zd.
• Prepare the laptop:
  • Make a copy of any data you wish to keep,
  • Check that the battery is inserted and locked,
  • Check that the power cord is in place and the battery indicator is green,
  • Turn off the laptop, unless it is already off,
  • Insert the USB drive into any USB port on the laptop,

• Start installing:
  • Hold down all four game keys above the power button,
  • Turn on the laptop,
  • Wait for the message Release the game keys to continue,
  • Release the game keys.

Installation progress will be displayed. Green colour will fill grey blocks. It will take about five minutes. Once finished, the laptop will reboot automatically. You may remove the USB or SD drive during or after the reboot.

The USB or SD drive can be used on other laptops. If installation progress is not displayed, you may be running an old firmware version which does not recognise the fs2.zip file. Please rename fs2.zip to fs.zip and try again. If you see a message Boot failed then either:

• the USB or SD drive has not been properly prepared, or;
• the firmware is out of date and should be updated (see Firmware).

XO-1.5

How to install signed build 18 of release 13.2.6 on XO-1.5.

The build is installed to the internal microSD device. You will need a USB drive or Secure Digital card of at least 1 GB capacity, but only for the duration of the installation. We recommend the drive be FAT formatted, but other formats are supported, see how to prepare a drive for use by the firmware for more details.

ALL USER DATA WILL BE ERASED FROM THE LAPTOP!

• Prepare the USB or SD drive:
  • Download 32018o1.zd, see How to Download,
  • Save the file to the top directory of the drive,
  • Download fs1.zip,
  • Save the file to the top directory of the same drive,
  • Check that the drive contains at least the two files fs1.zip and 32018o1.zd.
• Prepare the laptop:
  • Make a copy of any data you wish to keep,
  • Check that the battery is inserted and locked,
  • Check that the power cord is in place and the battery indicator is green,
  • Turn off the laptop, unless it is already off,
  • Insert the USB drive into any USB port on the laptop,

• Start installing:
  • Hold down all four game keys above the power button,
  • Turn on the laptop,
  • Wait for the message Release the game keys to continue,
  • Release the game keys.

Installation progress will be displayed. Green colour will fill grey blocks. It will take about ten minutes. Once finished, the laptop will reboot automatically. You may remove the USB or SD drive during or after the reboot.

The USB or SD drive can be used on other laptops. If installation progress is not displayed, you may be running an old firmware version which does not recognise the fs1.zip file. Please rename fs1.zip to fs.zip and try again. If you see a message Boot failed then either:

• the USB or SD drive has not been properly prepared, or;
• the firmware is out of date and should be updated (see Firmware).

XO-1

How to install signed build 18 of release 13.2.6 on XO-1.

The build is installed to the internal NAND flash device. You will need a USB drive or Secure Digital card of at least 1 GB capacity, but only for the duration of the installation. We recommend the drive be FAT formatted, but other formats are supported, see how to prepare a drive for use by the firmware for more details.

ALL USER DATA WILL BE ERASED FROM THE LAPTOP!

• Prepare the USB or SD drive:
  • Download 32018o0.img, see How to Download,
  • Save the file to the top directory of the drive,
  • Download fs0.zip,
  • Save the file to the top directory of the same drive,
  • Check that the drive contains at least the two files fs0.zip and 32018o0.img.
• Prepare the laptop:
  • Make a copy of any data you wish to keep,
  • Check that the battery is inserted and locked,
  • Check that the power cord is in place and the battery indicator is green,
  • Turn off the laptop, unless it is already off,
  • Insert the USB drive into any USB port on the laptop,

• Start installing:
  • Hold down all four game keys above the power button,
  • Turn on the laptop,
  • Wait for the message Release the game keys to continue,
  • Release the game keys.

Installation progress will be displayed. Green colour will fill yellow blocks. It will take about five minutes. Once finished, the laptop will reboot automatically. You may remove the USB or SD drive during or after the reboot.

The USB or SD drive can be used on other laptops. If installation progress is not displayed, you may be running an old firmware version which does not recognise the fs0.zip file. Please rename fs0.zip to fs.zip and try again. If you see a message Boot failed then either:

• the USB or SD drive has not been properly prepared, or;
• the firmware is out of date and should be updated (see Firmware).

XO-1 with SD card

An SD card makes an XO-1 faster, and has more space for downloads and activities. See how to install 13.2.6 on an XO-1 with SD card.

Update

You may wish to update from a previous version of the operating system. This method preserves most user data, the Sugar Journal and installed Sugar Activities, but does not preserve certain operating system customizations such as additional packages.

(Update is distinct from install. If you have followed the install procedures above, then you need not follow this section.)

Preparation

To prepare for an operating system update:

• remove as much saved content as you no longer need,
• remove any large activities you no longer need (in the Home view, erase them),
• remove any large collections (library content) you no longer need, and;
• use Software update to ensure the Terminal activity is the latest available version.

Follow the instructions in one of the subsections below, according to which method and laptop model you are using.

Simple Online Update

See Simple Online Update for more detail about the method.

• establish an internet connection from the laptop (if you plan to do online update),
• start the laptop normally,
• start the Terminal Activity, and depending on the laptop model type:

XO-4

sudo olpc-update 13.2.6_xo4-18

XO-1.75

sudo olpc-update 13.2.6_xo1.75-18

XO-1.5

sudo olpc-update 13.2.6_xo1.5-18

XO-1

sudo olpc-update 13.2.6_xo1-18

An online update can be very slow on an XO-1, in one test it took two hours; please consider reinstalling.

Simple Offline Update

• Download a .usb and .toc file, see How to Download,
  • for XO-4
    • 32018o4.usb,
    • 32018o4.toc,
  • for XO-1.75
    • 32018o2.usb,
    • 32018o2.toc,
  • for XO-1.5
    • 32018o1.usb,
    • 32018o1.toc,
  • for XO-1
    • 32018o0.usb,
    • 32018o0.toc,
• Put them on a USB drive,
• Boot the laptop normally,
• Plug the USB drive into the laptop,
• Start the Terminal Activity, and type:

sudo olpc-update --usb

See Simple Offline Update for more detail about the method.

Known Problems

Welcome Activity

The new version of Sugar does not support the Welcome activity.

Since 13.2.2. See <trac>12869</trac>.

Restricted Software

Restricted software, such as browser plugins, codecs, and so forth, are not included in the public release. Deployments who need this software should contact OLPC or make their own builds, see OS_Builder/Add_Restricted.

Also, using olpc-update on a restricted software build will remove restricted software.

Video Playback

The XO-1 cannot play some videos in the Browse or Epiphany web browsers, because the Adobe Flash plugin is no longer available for the Geode processor.

On some models, particularly XO-1 and XO-1.5, although MP4 playback support may be present with restricted software builds, the video to be played may require more processor and graphics bandwidth than the hardware can provide;

• especially with advertising or related videos elements on youtube.com,
• also inside a web browser for Khan Academy, but;
• not so much when playing the same video in Movie Player or Jukebox,

Workaround is to transcode videos to a lower bandwidth, or to pause playback and wait for advertising to finish loading.

Since 13.2.0.

Frozen Repositories

The frozen repositories have not been updated; the release was made from all Fedora 18 updates.

Since 13.2.5.

XO-4 Headphone Detection

XO-4 speakers may remain silent if headphones are removed during automatic power management suspend, or headphones may not work if they are inserted during suspend.

Since 13.2.0. <trac>12724</trac>.

Sugar Memory Leak

A memory leak is where a program allocates memory but forgets to release it.

Sugar has had a memory leak for several versions, in proportion to the number and size of icons displayed, see #4889. The cause is in Fedora 18.

The leak has negligible impact on XO-4, XO-1.75 and XO-1.5. On these laptops we recommend that you restart Sugar at least weekly.

The leak has a severe impact on XO-1. On the XO-1 we recommend that you restart Sugar every few hours, and especially after visiting the Background screen in My Settings. The leak is even more severe if the network view shows many icons.

Since 13.2.0.

Sugar Journal

Journal star does not give immediate feedback.

Since 13.2.6. Ticket #4904.

Sugar View Source missing scroll bar

View Source is missing a scroll bar.

Since 13.2.6. Ticket #4903.

Sugar may not start if disk is full

When disk is filled, Sugar may not start.

Since 13.2.0. <trac>9623</trac>.

Keyboard language switch key does not work in Gnome

In dual-language laptops, the multiply/divide key does not work in Gnome, because Gnome takes control of keyboard settings, overriding OLPC OS.

Workaround is to open Gnome Terminal, paste this command, and then restart Gnome;

gsettings set org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.keyboard active false

<trac>12922</trac>.

Language switch key not set on mechanical keyboards

In dual-language laptops with mechanical keyboards, there is no key to switch keyboard language.

Workaround is to edit the /etc/sysconfig/keyboard file to add

XKBOPTIONS="grp:shifts_toggle"

and then restart. Now, pressing both shift keys will switch keyboard language.

<trac>12921</trac>.