Builds
Except for firmware in the keyboard controller and network chip, all the software for the OLPC is open source, so in theory you could acquire the latest versions of all the needed source code together with the tools to compile it, and produce your own software.
In practice, centralized procedures regularly assemble the needed software elements in a build that developers and advanced users can install and test. The OS images page has more details on this nightly process.
Some well-known builds are made widely available as official releases, either as an unscheduled release (also known as a "patch" or ECO), or as one of the planned releases on the roadmap.
Sections below describe these in more detail.
To tell what version of the system software you have, follow How to check the OS and firmware versions.
Build names and branches
See better more comprehensive explanations at What release am I running? and Release notes
- Ship.1 is build 623, and was preloaded on all mass production XO machines for a while.
- It isn't preloaded on new machines, and any machine with it installed should since have been updated to Ship.2. It was released around 2007-11-01. It will mostly not be seen by the outside world at all.
- OLPC 7.1.0 (Ship.2) is build 650
- It is the build received by Give One Get One recipients, as well as the base for the customized build used by Uruguay Ceibal project users. It was released around 2007-12-01. Read the OLPC Ship.2 Software Release Notes.
- OLPC 8.1.0 (Update.1) is build 703
- OLPC SW-ECO 4 - This release contains no activities, and is suitable for a base image to be customized by deploying countries using a Customization key. Release notes are available. Machines can be automatically upgraded (preserving user data) from Ship.2 to 8.1.0, although activities need to be reinstalled as they are no longer contained in the image - see the release notes.
- OLPC 8.1.1 (Update.1.1) is build 708
- OLPC SW-ECO 5 - 8.1.1 was released in June 2008 as a minor update to 8.1.0. Release notes are available.
- OLPC 8.2.0 was released in September 2008, building on the 8.2 stream (starting around build 751) are progress towards it.
- (ECO...)
- OLPC 8.2.1 was released in May 2009...
- (ECO...)
- OLPC 10.1.2 builds are arriving over the course of 2010, for both the XO-1 and XO-1.5 laptops. See Fedora 11 for XO-1 and Fedora 11 for XO-1.5.
- (No ECO yet)
- Joyride builds were available at http://xs-dev.laptop.org/~cscott/olpc/streams/joyride/ -- starting in 2010 however, look here
- http://build.laptop.org
- "Joyride" can be thought of as synonymous with "trunk" or "HEAD" or "unstable", much like the Debian/unstable distribution.
The Releases page and http://dev.laptop.org/roadmap enumerate releases beyond 8.2.0.
Patches
Please see the Software ECO process for information on the patch release process.
Here is a list of the patches to date:
- OLPC 653 Software Release Notes - Ship2 patch1, 653
- OLPC 656 Software Release Notes (OLPC SW-ECO 2) - Ship2 patch2, 656
- OLPC SW-ECO 4 - "Peru and Mexico need a build for testing", so Update.1 release candidate 3 was provided as a patch.
- OLPC SW-ECO 5 - localized keyboards for Haiti and Ethiopia
Development builds
Development builds are regular builds of the entire system that have a large number of developing packages included, as they are being tested, broken, fixed and improved. Any given build is likely to have some new features not available anywhere else, as well as some broken old features that are not working because of work on the new.
Release candidates
When an announced release date for a new stable build approaches, say 6 weeks out, work on the development builds slows down -- or at least on a branch slated for release -- and efforts focus on producing a mostly-stable release candidate build that has few or no known major bugs and is suitable for wide testing by a cadre of community members and developers.
A build that is not sufficiently stable and has bugs that interfere with a variety of related tasks is difficult to test. On the flip side, producing a mostly-stable build means throwing out features that are too complex or not fully refined, and a build that does not have many improvements over the last stable build may not be greatly worth an extended testing effort.
A fully tested release candidate becomes a stable build.
Stable builds
Stable builds, also known as Releases are tested and supported builds that all users are encouraged to install or upgrade to. They are unlikely to have incompatibilities with any core activities, and are kept up to date with security and other urgent updates.
These builds are drawn from the rapidly developing #development builds through a process of testing and review. At announced intervals — currently once or more every 6 months — a relatively stable development build is announced as a release candidate, and tested heavily, updating it only to fix discovered bugs, until a stable build is obtained.
A stable build is changed only for the most urgent changes and patches after it is released; further features are added to the development builds.
Latest stable build
see OS_images#Latest_stable_build
See also
See Category:Builds for other wiki pages related to builds, and likewise Category:Releases.