Testing Update.1

As of build candidate-699, activities are no longer bundled with the core build -- they must be installed separately. This page attempts to describe the motivation for the change, and how to get your activities back.

Motivation

OLPC has many deployments, as well as the G1G1 user community, and can't afford to create a build for each deployment. Instead, OLPC will create a "core build" without activities that allows for easy customization of which resources (activities, content bundles) will be installed alongside it. The mechanism for performing this customization is the Customization key. We will create single step upgrade/customization capabilities as soon as possible to make this even easier for the end user.

I ran olpc-update to an update.1 build; how do I get my activities back?

You can download the G1G1 Activity Pack, unzip it onto a USB key, and reboot with the X game key held down. Linux will boot and unpack each of the bundles into place.

What's the recommended way to upgrade?

The recommended method is to run Olpc-update to the new build, and then to reboot with a G1G1 Activity Pack key inserted.

Upgrading an secure/insecure machine

"Secure" machines without developer keys will boot a customization key at startup without any intervention. "Insecure" machines with a developer key installed require the X game key to be held at boot to boot a customization key.

Which builds are signed, and why does it matter?

There are three streams for update.1 builds -- "update.1", "candidate", and "release". The first two are signed, the last isn't. The workflow is:

• Update.1 builds are created (for example, "update.1-699"), and if they pass testing such that they're an improvement over previous candidates, they become a signed "candidate" build.
• Candidate builds are represented in the form "candidate-699", and are our latest proposed final build for a release.
• Release builds are builds that have been passed to Quanta for installation on new laptops. Notwithstanding an Unscheduled software release, we expect only one of these builds per release cycle.

Creating your own activity pack

The create-customization-key Python script will create a customization key bundles/ directory for G1G1 (or Mexico, or Peru, or "all"). You should first unpack a customization key image on to a USB disk, and then in the root of the USB disk:

python create-customization-key G1G1

The advantage of creating the key yourself is that you get the very latest activities from the Update.1 repository, as opposed to the ones that were latest at the time the most recent Activity Pack was created.