F11 for 1.5

OLPC is developing a Fedora 11 Remix for the XO-1.5. The aim is to ship this software release with the XO-1.5 laptop as it begins to ship, later this year. We aim for the release to reach a suitable quality for immediate release to OLPC deployments.

Hardware status

A small number of XO-1.5 A-test boards have been manufactured and distributed to the core developers. In July, we anticipate having a larger stock of B-test boards for distribution to more developers and testers through the Contributors program.

Software status

Most of the system is functional, but there are many rough edges. It boots into gdm, offering a choice between Sugar and GNOME.

Bugs and outstanding work

This trac query shows current bugs for the XO-1.5. Look in the distro, kernel and x window system components for the software-related tickets.

Build system

We are using Fedora's standard livecd-creator to produce LiveCD images of our release. We then run a script on the output .iso which makes it an "installed" (non-live) image and repacks it in a format suitable for flashing onto the XO-1.5.

The code is at git://dev.laptop.org/projects/fedora-xo in the xo-1.5 branch (web interface).

Mailing list

We talk to each other on the fedora-olpc-list mailing list.

Modifications to Fedora

We're trying to work as close to Fedora (and the upstream projects which Fedora distributes) as possible; however, we also have the pressure of having to build a laptop and its software on a fixed timetable, so our priority remains on making things work. We'll keep this list updated as modifications come and go.

dracut

We add dracut to our build which is used for generating the early-boot initramfs. Dracut is unreleased software but suits our needs perfectly: we are going to implement our boot animation and initramfs-level security system as dracut modules.

Hopefully dracut will see a release soon, then it can be included in Fedora 11 and we would not have to ship an unofficial package of it. It should be possible to either get OLPC's special modules upstream, or installed through a separate package (dracut is impressively modular).

kernel

We maintain our own kernel based on Linux 2.6.30 at git://dev.laptop.org/olpc-2.6 in the xo-1.5 branch (web interface). These kernels get built into RPMs which can be found at http://dev.laptop.org/~dilinger/xo-1.5/

We aim to get much or all of this work upstream, but at the same time there are various challenges associated with that, and we need somewhere to develop and test our changes before they are ready.

The main modifications in our kernel include:

• Various patches to VIA drivers to support the brand-new VX855 chipset which the XO-1.5 is based on
• Support for OpenFirmware, the XO equivalent of a BIOS.
• We build the initramfs using dracut, not mkinitrd.

openchrome video driver

We add patches to this driver to support the brand new video hardware that is present in the XO-1.5. These patches will be going upstream soon, and hopefully we can get them included in Fedora 11 updates.