F11 for 1.5

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OLPC is developing a Fedora 11 Remix for the XO-1.5.


Requirements

The release was primarily [[Has objective:: targeted at the XO 1.5]], to be ready in time for that hardware to ship. Because of the new kernel work required, no previous distribution would have worked on the XO-1.5 without modification. As a result, we prioritized creating a shippable XO-1.5 build over creating a build that works well on both XO-1.5 and XO-1. F11-1.5 builds do not run on the XO-1, however volunteers and OLPC have leveraged this work to create F11 for XO-1 builds.

Hardware status

XO-1.5 is in production.

Software status

10.1.1 was released, development in 2010 continues towards a 10.1.2 release.

Mailing list

We talk to each other on the fedora-olpc-list mailing list. New builds are announced there.

Bugs and outstanding work

This trac report 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 olpc-os-builder to produce operating system images for flashing onto the XO-1.5. The code is at git://dev.laptop.org/projects/olpc-os-builder (browse).

Download

Builds for the 10.2 stream are at http://build.laptop.org/10.2.0/ ; official release builds are at http://download.laptop.org/xo-1.5/os/official/ ; earlier builds are at http://dev.laptop.org/~cjb/f11-1.5/

Installation

Internal microSD

How to install signed build os850 of release 10.1.2 on XO-1.5.

The build is installed to the internal microSD device. You will need a USB drive of at least 1 GB capacity, but only for the duration of the installation.

ALL USER DATA WILL BE ERASED FROM THE LAPTOP!

  • Prepare the USB drive:
    • Download os850.zd,
    • Save the file to the top directory of the USB drive,
    • Download os850.zsp.fs.zip,
    • Save the file to the top directory of the same USB drive,
    • Rename the file to fs.zip, (removing the os850.zsp part of the name),
    • Check the USB drive contains at least the two files fs.zip and os850.zd.
  • Prepare the laptop:
    • Make a copy of any data you wish to keep,
    • Check the battery is inserted and locked,
    • Check that the power cord is in place and the battery indicator is green,
    • Turn off the laptop, unless it is already off,
    • Insert the USB drive into any USB port on the laptop,
  • Start installing:
    • Hold down all four game keys (see this in pictures),
    • Turn on the laptop,
    • Wait for the message Release the game keys to continue,
    • Release the game keys.

Installation progress will be displayed. Green colour will fill grey blocks. It will take about ten minutes. Once finished, the laptop will reboot automatically. Remove the USB drive during or after the reboot. The USB drive can be used on other laptops.

If you see a message Boot failed then either:

  • the USB drive has not been properly prepared, or;
  • the firmware is out of date and should be updated (see Firmware).

External SD

This is an alternate method; the build is installed manually onto a portable SD card memory device, which must be plugged in to boot, and must remain plugged in while the system is running. It is intended for testing, and should not change the data on the internal microSD.

Select an SD card that has nothing you need on it, and is at least 4Gb in size.

ALL USER DATA WILL BE ERASED FROM THE SD CARD

Follow the procedure above to just before using fs-update, and type this command before the fs-update: 

devalias fsdisk ext:0

(This changes the alias device used by fs-update, so that the external SD card slot is written to.)

External USB

This is an alternate method; the build is installed onto a portable USB memory device, which must be plugged in to boot, and must remain plugged in while the system is running. It is intended for testing, and should not change the data on the internal microSD.

This method is also more risky, since it is so easy to destroy data on a system.

Select a USB memory that has nothing you need on it, and is at least 4Gb in size.

ALL USER DATA WILL BE ERASED FROM THE USB MEMORY!

Download osXY.img.gz from the build directory and write it block-wise to a USB memory 

zcat osXY.img.gz > /dev/sdX

Note: known to work on os48, known to not work on os40 (per #9681 and #9686).

Updating OS

If you wish to update the XO 1.5 operative system you can type on the terminal: 

olpc-update 10.2_xo1.5-NNN   #Where NN is the os build number

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. Most of the changes can be found in the source RPMs found here: http://dev.laptop.org/~dsd/xo1.5-rpms/

kernel

We maintain our own kernels for XO-1 and XO-1.5 based on Linux 2.6.31 at git://dev.laptop.org/olpc-2.6 in the olpc-2.6.31 branch (web interface) or later branches for newer kernels (laptop devel mailing list post).

RPMs

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.

olpc-bootanim

This new package is OLPC's boot animation. Plymouth doesn't play nicely in the presence of serial consoles and has performance issues so we are sticking to a system which we know is working for now.

We tried to get this included in Fedora at https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=510573 but ran into a headache because the package needs to have a Conflict with plymouth (it provides /usr/bin/plymouth by-design), Conflicts are not permitted without good reason and "we don't have time to fix plymouth" is not a good reason. This package can live out-of-tree for now, and will hopefully die one day when plymouth is usable on XO and includes our theme.

sugar

<trac>9403</trac>: we've added Ad-Hoc networking support to Sugar-0.84 <trac>9384</trac>: and fixed a crash that occurs when you install content bundles

sugar-toolkit

Sugar hardcodes the font size of certain elements at size 10 and does not allow this to be configured. This looks too big on the small XO screen. We fork the package to adjust the font size to size 7.

See also

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