Talk:OLPC Firmware q2e45

Is FAT, and NOT FAT32, really necessary? I think you should all be more consistent about what you tell people.

For example, THIS page... http://wiki.laptop.org/go/USB_drive suggests that FAT32 is perfectly fine for firmware installs. Should I REALLY be overwriting the factory default formatting? And if FAT32 format is genuinely not correct for this purpose, please make it clear that factory settings must be overwritten.

If I have an 8 GB memory stick, should I REALLY format it for FAT in order to install the firmware update? Or should drives 2 GB and smaller be FAT, and larger be FAT32? Should I not be using any memory sticks larger than 2 GB to stay under the FAT formatting limit for firmware upgrades?

• There are two actions; the download step, and the flash step. The context of the restriction in Manual Firmware Install was specific to downloading using a Windows machine, not the flash step. The information we had at the time was that the combined steps do not work unless the filesystem is FAT. We don't have any further detail in the source code of OpenFirmware. I have tested just now that FAT32 works fine at the flash step with Q2E44 and later. FAT12, FAT16, FAT16 extended, ISO9660, ext2, and ext3 should all work. If it doesn't work, OpenFirmware will not commence the flash programming, so it is safe to try expecting it to fail. Please test for us, download using a Windows machine, to verify whether it is still a problem. Let us know what version of Windows you used, and what filesystem format. Thanks. --Quozl 23:49, 28 December 2010 (UTC)