User:Greenfeld/Testing Information

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XO
13.2.11 2020-01-29
XS
xs-0.7 2012-02-20


Testing Information

This page is meant to help those who are new to testing the XO laptop. It provides links to a variety of resources which may be useful.

XO Hardware Versions

There are basic three versions of the XO hardware currently accessible to testers. They are the XO-1, XO-1.5, and XO-1.75.

  • XO-1: The original laptop. 450 MHz AMD processor, 256 MB RAM, 1 GB storage.
  • XO-1.5: Current production. 1 GHz Via processor, 1 GB RAM (512 MB option), 4 GB storage (by default; other values available).
  • XO-1.75: Under development; specifications subject to change. 800 Mhz ARMv7 processor, 512 MB or 1 GB RAM (depends on prototype), 4 GB storage (other prototypes/production values possible).

Each of these basic versions may very in terms of:

  • Keyboard controller: XO-1s may have ALPS or EnE keyboard controllers. XO-1.5 & 1.75 99% of the time will have EnE keyboard controllers, unless they are placed into an XO frame with an ALPS keyboard base. It is unlikely you will encounter an ALPS keyboard unless you have a very early XO-1.
  • Keyboard language: Multiple keyboard languages are supported. For a complete list look at Keyboard#Languages_other_than_English.
  • Keyboard style: Both membrane based as well as mechanical ("High School") keyboards are available.
  • Touchpad style: ALPS keyboards have a three-segment touchpad, in which only the middle segment senses fingers, and the rest can detect stylus input when enabled. All newer systems only have a single-segment touchpad which senses fingers.
  • Touchpad type: Since the ALPS style was discontinued from early XO-1's, Synaptic touchpads well as AVC/Sentelic touchpads have been used.
  • Memory/Storage: Deployments may request different amounts of RAM or onboard storage from their default values, and development machines may vary as well.

Installing Builds

You can choose to either "install" a new build, or "upgrade" to it. Installation overwrites anything already on the XO's internal storage, and is guaranteed to almost always work. Upgrading usually works (especially between minor revisions), but on XO-1s may require you to delete files in order to make enough space. All releases have a page which provide instructions on how to do either approach.

For the most part we tend to recommend installing builds when testing (which will erase your data!) unless you specifically want to test upgrade support.

Many OLPC Wiki pages, including the home page and this one, embed a text box pointing to the latest stable & unstable software available for use.

For XO-1, the command to install a build at the Ok prompt is either "copy-nand" or "update-nand", depending on the OS version. For XO-1.5 and XO-1.75, the "fs-update" command is used. To upgrade from one build to another, use the "olpc-update" Linux command.

In order to install a build which has not been formally released for production usage, you must have an "unlocked" XO laptop. If you can get the Ok prompt then your laptop is unlocked. Except for XO-1's from the original G1G1 XO-1 program, and deployments which use anti-theft or signed builds, all XO laptops should be unlocked.

Test Cases

Test Case System

The Test cases page has a complete list of test cases stored in this wiki. Many of these are out of date, and some are no longer relevant but for the most part the differences between releases can be easily figured out.

These test cases are stored in a test case management system which was also developed within the wiki. However this TCMS is not currently used for logging results because:

  • It is hard to handle test case scheduling with this system.
  • There is no (known) easy way to see what has not been run yet against a build.
  • MediaWiki caches wiki pages, even those which use semantic data like the test case system. This means every wiki page in the TCMS shows stale results until the cached copy expires, or a page purge is forced.

Smoke Tests

The latest version of the "one hour" smoke test can be found here.

Collaboration Testing

A few of the test cases as well as the smoke tests require more than one XO to test collaboration between laptops. If you do not have more than one XO to work with, then you can safely skip these sections (but log you did if reporting results).


Bug/Issue Tracking

OLPC vs. Sugar Labs vs. Fedora

There are three bug tracking systems related to OLPC software releases.

  • OLPC has its own bugtracker at http://dev.laptop.org/, which also hosts the Trac software repository for OLPC specific software changes. If a bug is found in the custom Linux kernel, a video driver, or any olpc-specific package, the problem should be filed in this system.
  • The main user UI for children is called "Sugar". Sugar Labs is the group responsible for maintaining this. If a bug is found in the Sugar UI, or any Sugar-startable Activity, it should be filed at http://bugs.sugarlabs.org/.
  • At its core, XO software releases are based on Red Hat's Fedora Linux distribution, and OLPC software releases are officially considered a "Fedora remix". But the Linux kernel, Sugar packages, and Sugar activities included with OLPC software builds typically differ from what Fedora provides by default.
    Bugs in Fedora are logged at https://bugzilla.redhat.com/, but please be sure that you are not using a custom OLPC package or installation approach which is causing the problem before filing the issue upstream.

When in doubt, please file a bug for any problem found using an XO on the OLPC bugtracker, and someone will provide information on where it should go as appropriate.

Where should I file bug for...

Known Issues

Before filing a bug, please be sure to check for known issues first. These are found on the Release notes page for already completed releases, as well as in build announcements for pre-released products. Searching the various bug tracking systems may also reveal that someone has filed the same bug before.

If you are using prototype XO-1.75 hardware, please look at the currently known list of Software restrictions, as major components like Audio are still under development. The 11.3.0 development page also may have useful information.

Mailing Lists

As a tester, there are a few email lists you may wish to subscribe to. All the following lists are publicly accessible & archived, with members of these lists can send email to them as well.

  • The OLPC testing mailing list is a low traffic list about testing OLPC XO products.
  • The OLPC development mailing list is a medium-traffic list about developing software for the OLPC/XO platform. Sugar-specific development questions which are not specific to using Sugar on an XO should be sent to the Sugar development mailing list instead.
  • The Sugar development mailing list is a medium-traffic list for developing the Sugar interface.
  • The IAEP Sugar mailing list (It's an Education Project) is a medium-traffic non-technical mailing list for discussing the Sugar constructionist approach to learning.
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