OLPC Firmware q3a65

NOTE: The contents of this page are not set in stone, and are subject to change! This page is a draft in active flux ... Please leave suggestions on the talk page.

• add support for sparse .zd files, decreasing fs-update time,
• fix fs-update failure to erase whole disk,
• revised help display,

fs-update sparse .zd files

Sparse .zd files do not include unused filesystem blocks. As a result, installation time for 10.1.3 falls from 14 minutes to 7 minutes ... if the .zd file is processed. Patches to olpc-os-builder are available for future builds.

(There is now an installation time advantage to smaller operating system builds).

fs-update erase

The fix for failure to erase whole disk exposed a problem with some cards. We now split the erase into 16 segments, and check for completion of the erase prevented erase interruption, resulting in these cards being properly erased.

The user experience changes to fs-update are:

• there is a delay while erasure occurs (previously erasure was covering 1/256th of the card so the delay was not obvious),

• during the delay a ~ (tilde) is displayed on the status line, and the storage LED blinks 8 times,

The length of the delay depends on the type of card, and how much work the card has to do. Workload depends on the size of the image to be installed, and the size of the image already on the card. In our tests it is no more than about 15 seconds (Toshiba SD, SanDisk microSD 4GB 2009), and no less than about 33ms (SanDisk 4GB 2010).

help

UPDATES:
 fs-update u:\os1.zd4   Rewrite the OS on internal SD from USB drive
 flash u:\q3a64.rom     Rewrite the firmware from USB drive
 flash ext:\q3a64.rom   Rewrite the firmware from external SD file
DIRECTORY LISTING:
 dir u:\                List USB drive root directory
 dir u:\boot\           List USB drive /boot directory
 dir int:\boot\*.zip    List .zip files in internal SD /boot directory
BOOTING:
 boot                   Start the OS from list of default locations
 printenv boot-device   Show the list of default locations used by boot
 boot u:\test.fth       Start the OS from a specific location
CONFIGURATION VARIABLES FOR BOOTING:
 boot-device  Kernel or boot script paths.  Example: ext:\boot\olpc.fth
 boot-file    Default kernel command line.  Example: console=ttyS0,115200
 ramdisk      Initial RAMDISK path.         Example: int:\boot\initrd.img
MANAGING CONFIGURATION VARIABLES:
 printenv [ <name> ]    Show configuration variables
 setenv <name> <value>  Set configuration variable
 editenv <name>         Edit configuration variable
DIAGNOSTICS:
 test <device-name>     Test device.  Example: test mouse
 test-all               Test all devices that have test routines
 menu                   Graphical interface to selftests
More information: 
 http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OFW_FAQ