Release notes/8.1.1

  This page is monitored by the OLPC team.

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

  For the general public

for other discussion, see Update.1

What's new in the candidate-708 (8.1.0) release?

1. fix bugs
2. laptops now suspend when closed & resume when opened, for better battery life
3. each activity runs isolated from the others, for better security
4. Sugar activities are now released separately, or in "Activity Packs", rather than as part of the operating system release.

Please also refer to the milestone and the official roadmap for schedule dates and features for each release.

Pending successful completion of the Release Checklist, we will release an official 8.1.1 build. Our current release candidate is candidate-708.

Breaking Changes from official-656

Activities must be installed separately.

Motivation: OLPC cannot presently afford to maintain more than one stable build. Therefore, we have decided to provide a "blank slate" which must be customized with activities and content bundles at installation time.

What's the recommended way to upgrade?

1. Download the G1G1 Activity Pack (from here) and unzip it in the base (root) directory of a USB flash drive. You should see two directories (boot and bundles, and a file called customization-2) in the base directory. Commands such as "extract here" in ubuntu / windows will sometimes create a directory with the same name as the zip file, placing the unzipped files within it. If this happens, you will have to move the files to the base directory in order for your XO to see them on boot. (Note that the "boot" directory will contain two zip files, actos.zip and runos.zip. This is normal; these files SHOULD NOT be unzipped).
2. Plug the XO into an electrical outlet and connect it to the internet.
3. Run Olpc-update to the new build. ( terminal -> su -l (lowercase L, not 1) -> olpc-update -f 703 ) This may take half an hour or more, depending on your internet connection.
4. Insert the USB flash drive and reboot the XO. It will display text on a black screen as the activities are installed, after which it will power off.
5. Remove the USB flash drive. Connect the XO to AC power, so that it will be able to proceed if it determines that a firmware update is needed. Then power on your XO as per usual.

If you are upgrading from build 69X, the build is already separated from the activities in those builds. So you can run olpc-update -f 703 and your activities will not be affected.

Finding Activities

OLPC hosts many Activities. These activities can be installed in en masse onto 8.1.1 with either:

• a customization key and an activity pack or
• with Bert's script

Some commonly installed activity packs include the:

• G1G1 activity pack (download)
• Peru activity pack
• Nepal activity pack
• ...more activity packs

(The Nepal activity pack contains some additional customizations made by OLE Nepal for their pilot).

TO INSTALL AN ACTIVITY PACK:

Install an activity pack

Improvements from build 703

See OLPC_SW-ECO_5 for a more precise list of the changes, indexed by ticket, that lead from official-703 to candidate-708. To summarize, we added:

• More accurate Amharic and Kreyól keyboard maps for Ethiopia and Haiti.
• First-draft support for the resistive touchpad (implementation details may change in future releases!).
• Updated wireless drivers and firmware
• Support for USB ethernet adapters.
• Several UI and library bug fixes.

Notable Current Bugs

• #6532 SD Card Corruption: partition table gets corrupted on ext3-formatted SD cards on suspend/resume
• #7158 Upgrade from 656 to 703 leaves su unusable when you fallback to 656
• The contents of a USB key didn't show in the journal. So couldn't install activity bundles from the USB through the journal.

Customization Issues

• Customization key won't install if the activities or library directories had already been created as root

Activity Issues

• #6773 TamTamJam: Recorded microphone slots don't playback. ?need to test
• Couldn't add feeds to news reader because clicking "+"/dropdown on the feeds tab didn't do anything. ?need to test
• Read will not reliably share a PDF document.
• #6729 Read doesn't save the PDFs it opens (when sharing)
• #4539 Sharing in Etoys only works if the laptops are in the same network (on same mesh channel, or connected to same access point). ?need to test

(Almost) full activity testing results for Update.1 RC-2, all results are from build 702

Touchpad Issues

• The Nepal pilot reported "jumpy touchpad" problems in dusty conditions. In response, we have surveyed known touchpad issues and have examined potential software work-arounds . See also [1].

Network Related Issues

Access Points

• When a number of laptops try to connect to the school server (either over a WiFi AP or a mesh) at one time, random "failure to associate" will occur and the laptops will join a simple mesh instead #4153 (#5963 is dup). This is indicated by the network indicator in the home view (it will say "Connected to a simple mesh" instead of "Connected to a school mesh portal" or "Connected to <school_essid>" when hovered over. Simply click on the school Wifi AP or one of the mesh circles in the laptop's neighborhood view to restart the association process.
• Sometimes when a number of laptops try to connect to the school server at one time, random laptops may be unable to connect to schoolserver presence service (ejabber) #5908. This is indicated by a greatly reduced number of XO icons in the neighborhood view (compared to a laptop which is connected to the presence service). Simply click on the school Wifi AP or one of the mesh circles in the laptop's neighborhood view to restart the association process (in extreme cases, restart Sugar (CTL + ALT + ERASE) or reboot the laptop).
• Association with WEP/WPA encryption works. However this must be tested for a wider range of access points.
• Sometimes obsolete APs show in the neighborhood view, or an AP is shown more than once. #6909

School Server/ Jabber Server

• To register to a school server and connect to the school jabber server you must
  1. Ensure that you are connected to the appropriate Network by hovering over the Network circle in the Home View.
  2. Hover over the XO icon in the main view and select Register.
  3. Hover again over the XO icon and verify that the Register entry has disappeared.
  4. Restart sugar by pressing Ctrl+Alt+Erase.
  5. Confirm you have connected to the jabber server by typing olpc-netstatus from the terminal.
• When registering with a school server, you MUST associate with the correct network before clicking Register for the first time. Otherwise, you wont be able to register until you restart Sugar (Ctrl+Alt+Erase) #6857.
• You should restart sugar (Ctrl+Alt+Erase) to resolve the following bugs
  • You can't register with the school server. #6857
  • You can't connect to the default jabber server alhtough you have registered.#6881
  • You connected to the jabber server, and gabble is running, but no XOs, or few XOs are seen in the neighborhood view. #6883,#6884
  • You are running both gabble and salut. #6881,#6886

Simple Mesh / Salut

• When XOs leave the mesh, the neighborhood view will notice with a delay between 10-30min.#6282,#5501
• However, when XOs enter the mesh or start an activity it is shown instantly.
• You can refresh the data of the neighborhood view by reconnecting to the mesh.
• Suspend/Resume will not work with salut.
• Chat crash fixed?

UI

• Sometimes in the neighborhood view, when connected to an Access Point a mesh circle continues to blink. This will also show up as two network circles in the Home view. This shows false information, but also causes no harm, so it may be ignored. #5459
• When an XO joins a shared activity its icon should disappear and reappear next to the activity. It happens that the XO icon will just disappear. Its collaboration will work properly, and if it leaves the activity it will show again as normal. You can see the correct number of XOs clustered around the activity by restarting sugar(Ctrl+Alt+Erase). However the bug will continue from this point on when new XOs join the same or other activities. #5904