Manual Firmware Install

Note: Many firmware pages transclude this page to provide installation instructions, providing a version in place of VERSION_NUM; see e.g. OLPC Firmware q2e15.

Installation

When installing new firmware, you need a well-charged battery and the AC adapter must be plugged in. The firmware update code will not proceed otherwise.

Unsecured Machines

(Please note that most developer machines are "unsecured". To unsecure your machine, follow the instructions at Activation and Developer Keys.)

First download the firmware from http://dev.laptop.org/pub/firmware/VERSION_NUM/VERSION_NUM.rom.

You can download on another computer with the above link.

If you are copying the firmware from a Windows machine,

• Make sure the USB drive is formatted for FAT and not FAT32, and
• Don't use a \boot directory.

To download on the XO (into its NAND flash file system), start the Terminal Activity and as root type something like

cd /versions/boot/current/boot/
wget http://dev.laptop.org/pub/firmware/VERSION_NUM/VERSION_NUM.rom

If you want to use a USB drive or SD card to store the firmware before installing, replace the first line above with:

cd /media/disk
mkdir boot
cd boot

Copy the VERSION_NUM.rom file you downloaded to the XO NAND FLASH filesystem as /versions/boot/current/boot/VERSION_NUM.rom, or to a USB drive as /boot/VERSION_NUM.rom.

Power cycle the system and press the press Escape key during boot to get to the 'ok' prompt. If you don't get it, try until you do. See Ok for more detail.

At the 'ok' prompt type one of the following commands

if the file is on the NAND FLASH filesystem

 ok flash n:\boot\VERSION_NUM.rom 

if the file is on the NAND FLASH in the alternate boot filesystem

 ok flash n:\boot-alt\VERSION_NUM.rom 

if the file is on a USB drive

 ok flash u:\boot\VERSION_NUM.rom

if the file is on a USB drive but not in the boot directory

 ok flash u:\VERSION_NUM.rom

if the file is on an SD card

 ok flash sd:\boot\VERSION_NUM.rom

(Use the dir command if you need help finding the file.)

This will only work if the XO has a well-charged battery AND is plugged in. "AC not present" means you need to plug it in.

Secured Machines

Pre-mass-production machines were almost all unsecured. Secure-mode machines can only use flash firmware that has been signed. All mass-production machines had the latest signed firmware at the time of manufacture installed.

Upgrading firmware describes how to upgrade to a newer official (signed) firmware release.

See also

• Cheat codes for information about how game buttons control startup options.