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mavrothal
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#21 Post by mavrothal »

ttuuxxx wrote:It would be easier to start on a system that does boot and edit the sfs files and add the drivers to the sfs then rebuild the sfs . I'll start this week when I get the XO :)
ttuuxxx
:D :D :D

Assuming that you produce something usable please put a note here and/or other OLPC threads in he forum as to where the relevant thread/download will be.
Thanks

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ttuuxxx
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#22 Post by ttuuxxx »

I'll probably start a new thread where I can have control of the first post like what I did for 2.14X have a look at the first page :)
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=42553
It makes it way easier for the testers to find the latest release.
ttuuxxx
http://audio.online-convert.com/ <-- excellent site
http://samples.mplayerhq.hu/A-codecs/ <-- Codec Test Files
http://html5games.com/ <-- excellent HTML5 games :)

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mavrothal
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#23 Post by mavrothal »

ttuuxxx wrote:I'll probably start a new thread where I can have control of the first post like what I did for 2.14X have a look at the first page :)
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=42553
It makes it way easier for the testers to find the latest release.
ttuuxxx
That's what I would expect.
I just asked, if is not too much trouble, to post the link in this and/or other OLPC threads to give a heads up to interested people that may monitor the existing OLPC threads.

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ttuuxxx
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#24 Post by ttuuxxx »

mavrothal wrote:
ttuuxxx wrote:I'll probably start a new thread where I can have control of the first post like what I did for 2.14X have a look at the first page :)
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=42553
It makes it way easier for the testers to find the latest release.
ttuuxxx
That's what I would expect.
I just asked, if is not too much trouble, to post the link in this and/or other OLPC threads to give a heads up to interested people that may monitor the existing OLPC threads.
yes I'll have to do something like that, They did say post something monthly so I'll just copy and paste release notes once a month and give the thread link to there forum
ttuuxxx
http://audio.online-convert.com/ <-- excellent site
http://samples.mplayerhq.hu/A-codecs/ <-- Codec Test Files
http://html5games.com/ <-- excellent HTML5 games :)

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ttuuxxx
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#25 Post by ttuuxxx »

I just bought on ebay a 32GB SDHC card, to use on the laptop they are sending me, so that should give me some compiling room :)
ttuuxxx
http://audio.online-convert.com/ <-- excellent site
http://samples.mplayerhq.hu/A-codecs/ <-- Codec Test Files
http://html5games.com/ <-- excellent HTML5 games :)

raffy
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they

#26 Post by raffy »

Now you've been talking about "they" -- it seems that there's been an organization of some sort. I guess it would help if one of you could describe what's going on.

The way it's usually done in the Forum is that projects are described and people come in to contribute as things roll on. If people see the "we" and "they" early on, there is less chance of the others joining.

I can't resist noting these points, as this was the weakness of the old OLPC approach. But if the current effort is based on hiring people for forming a team and not on welcoming volunteers, then I stand corrected.

Also, please don't forget that Barry has one of those XO-1s.
Puppy user since Oct 2004. Want FreeOffice? [url=http://puppylinux.info/topic/freeoffice-2012-sfs]Get the sfs (English only)[/url].

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ttuuxxx
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#27 Post by ttuuxxx »

Hi Raffy, I'll explain.
When I say "they" I mean the OLPC company, They are sending me possibly 2 laptops this week(maybe one, I'll find out when I get them), So I can build them a puppy version. Its going to stretch my talents a bit :) But I learned lots with 2.14X and feel confident enough to build a working Os.
It will not be a tradition puppy, most gtkdialog applications will be tossed. The reason, is that they take too much resources compared with C programs. Most scripts will have to stay because there aren't many replacements.
Gxine will be tossed and VLC will be used, I'll have to recompile 8.6h.
Most drivers will be tossed and I'll compile the ones needed for XO.
That will slim the OS size, why include extra that aren't needed?
all in all my goal is 75-130MB including gimp, wx. not sure on the size of sugar yet. I bet the battery life will almost double when I'm finished, compared to a regular puppy. Plus I'll have to do some custom things also. And yes I'll release testing versions and take input etc just like I did with 2.14X. So it can be a group effort if people want help, great.
The main request by the OLPC company is that I keep them informed with the progress and difficulties I encounter once a month.
My first target will be getting a working kernel, compiled just for XO, that way it will reduce extra drivers and make the OS even smaller. Same with alsa etc.
ttuuxxx
http://audio.online-convert.com/ <-- excellent site
http://samples.mplayerhq.hu/A-codecs/ <-- Codec Test Files
http://html5games.com/ <-- excellent HTML5 games :)

fsabatino
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#28 Post by fsabatino »

Hey ttuuxxx,

In Uruguay, we have just finished rolling out the X0s to 100% (yes... all) primary school kids in the country (public schools that is). Next phase will commence with high school.

http://blogs.worldbank.org/edutech/vide ... chnologies

Literally, I see kids walking around the streets with the little green laptops and rows of them sucking up wifi access on the sidewalks of our suburbs here in Montevideo.

Having a child with one of these at home, and seeing how teeeeeerribly slow it is compared to my puppy, I (as maybe hundreds of others), am keenly keeping an eye on your progress.

All the best mate. Good luck with your work

(yes... I too am Aussie, believe it or not)

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ttuuxxx
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#29 Post by ttuuxxx »

I'm Canadian and Australian, Born raised in Canada for the first 30yrs and Been in Australia for the past 9 years. :)
Any Idea of the size of the OS that comes with XO compressed iso?
The reason why I asked is that I'm unsure if OpenOffice should be default or Abiword/Gnumeric like 200MB compressed extra for OO. If I did that the iso could be 380MB including Java for OpenOffice. The small 2-3 series version we have doesn't work with newer formats.
ttuuxxx
http://audio.online-convert.com/ <-- excellent site
http://samples.mplayerhq.hu/A-codecs/ <-- Codec Test Files
http://html5games.com/ <-- excellent HTML5 games :)

fsabatino
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#30 Post by fsabatino »

I'm unsure if the size of the OS (I'm at the office at the XO is at home). I do know that the image file for flashing and upgrading ths OS weighs an odd 460Mb, give or take a few Mb.
You have probably already seen this page, but just in case here it is. It has more info you may find relevant. (http://wiki.laptop.org/go/LiveBackup_XO-LiveCD).

I'm sure you'll have your reasons for using OO or Abiword/Gnumeric. I'd choose Abiword/Gnumeric. And the simple reason is that from my experience with the XO, with the original Fedora/Sugar is that it is slow as a slug with crutches. In other words, anything that can help speed it up will be welcome.

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ttuuxxx
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#31 Post by ttuuxxx »

The latest iso version is 539M compressed.
http://www.skolelinux.de/XO-LiveCD/
man that's big, probably just a small version. Hmmm maybe later I could look at koffice, should be able to get that around 80MB. And if you remove the abiword/Gnumeric it would only add about 65MB or less.
But first I'll try abiword. and see how it goes.
ttuuxxx
http://audio.online-convert.com/ <-- excellent site
http://samples.mplayerhq.hu/A-codecs/ <-- Codec Test Files
http://html5games.com/ <-- excellent HTML5 games :)

fsabatino
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#32 Post by fsabatino »

ttuuxxx wrote:The latest iso version is 539M compressed.
http://www.skolelinux.de/XO-LiveCD/
man that's big, probably just a small version. Hmmm maybe later I could look at koffice, should be able to get that around 80MB. And if you remove the abiword/Gnumeric it would only add about 65MB or less.
But first I'll try abiword. and see how it goes.
ttuuxxx
Yikes! As the great Maxwell Smart would say "I missed it by that much!" (none other than 80 Mb!).
Good luck with that ttuuxxx. I'll watch this thread for news.

raffy
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best

#33 Post by raffy »

Yes, after lots of 'weightlifting" practice with 214X, ttuuxxx tries the XOpup.

Please keep notes here in the forum as you go on as others may follow your example for other platforms.

Good luck!
Puppy user since Oct 2004. Want FreeOffice? [url=http://puppylinux.info/topic/freeoffice-2012-sfs]Get the sfs (English only)[/url].

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#34 Post by ttuuxxx »

Hi Raffy I'll try my best to detail what I've been doing like the 2.14X thread is, I have a feeling the Kernel will be a large effort, Once the kernel is compiled then it shouldn't be so bad after that. First I would like to get Upup or Dpup working on it. Then compile a kernel, Xorg, alsa and start using woof. Really PPup would be good and probably the smallest, but it looks like its the end of the road for 4 series soon, 6 months give or take until 5 series takes off. So I'll opt for a larger version that includes extra deps.
ttuuxxx
http://audio.online-convert.com/ <-- excellent site
http://samples.mplayerhq.hu/A-codecs/ <-- Codec Test Files
http://html5games.com/ <-- excellent HTML5 games :)

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mavrothal
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some usefull info

#35 Post by mavrothal »

Hey ttuuxxx
please do not hesitate to provide snapshots and alphas for testing. Would be better if they run from a USB or SDcard instead of the internal NAND

Some info that you may find useful
Th latest stable XO-1 release is os 802. Is 223MB (jffs2) to install in the NAND or 450MB with all the aplications and data libraries. You can get the ext3 version for installation in USB/SD card however is not going to work without a little hack.
The OS is Fedora 9 based and uses a patched 2.6.25 kernel. Kernel sources are here.

There are Fedora 11 based development builds using the 2.6.30 kernel. They are about 500MB but include >100MB worth of applications. However these still have problems with the video driver, battery monitor/embedded controller and camera drivers.
There is also a Debian version with more mainstream infrastructure and a geode video driver that supports multiple resolutions, that you may find useful.
The Ubuntu Intrepid version is probably the most polished XO distro and the developers provides several goodies, including power management, screen rotation, battery monitor keybindings etc that you may also find useful.
Finally olpc-powerd and olpc-kbdshim are very handy packages for touchpad, keyboard monitoring, mods and power management. Are HAL-based and may be proven handy.

A lot/all the Open Firmware/FORTH info can be found here

A word of caution. XO-1 is not playing well with some SDcard brands and types. Transend and Kingston are pretty reliable but people are reporting more problems with bigger cards. Never heard anyone using a 32GB on the XO.

Also XO-1 has also some quircks. Ask if you come across anything strange or hard to guess eg ctrl-alt-neibourhood (the 3 dot button) drops you to console...

raffy
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PPup

#36 Post by raffy »

ttuuxxx wrote:Really PPup would be good and probably the smallest, but it looks like its the end of the road for 4 series soon..
It will be good to target small size and the packages that you've polished in 214X. Applications using GTK-1, for example, stand a better chance of being speedy. Last time I checked (using the Wizbook) the LX700 (which is in the XO-1) isn't that fast of a processor. Experience with the LX800 was better, but this is not the one used in the XO-1. (If this information is outdated, feel free to correct me.)

4.13 was the Woof build out of 4.2.1 packages - hope you've taken note of that.
Puppy user since Oct 2004. Want FreeOffice? [url=http://puppylinux.info/topic/freeoffice-2012-sfs]Get the sfs (English only)[/url].

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#37 Post by clarf »

I would like to help here in my spare time (some weekends). I know some basic shell and AWK programming, I also can help editing initrd.gz file and other basic scripts if needed.

Does it count for help you?

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mavrothal
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#38 Post by mavrothal »

ttuuxxx wrote:Hi Raffy, I'll explain.
It will not be a tradition puppy, most gtkdialog applications will be tossed. The reason, is that they take too much resources compared with C programs. Most scripts will have to stay because there aren't many replacements.
Gxine will be tossed and VLC will be used, I'll have to recompile 8.6h.
Most drivers will be tossed and I'll compile the ones needed for XO.
That will slim the OS size, why include extra that aren't needed?
all in all my goal is 75-130MB including gimp, wx. not sure on the size of sugar yet. I bet the battery life will almost double when I'm finished, compared to a regular puppy. Plus I'll have to do some custom things also. And yes I'll release testing versions and take input etc just like I did with 2.14X. So it can be a group effort if people want help, great.
The main request by the OLPC company is that I keep them informed with the progress and difficulties I encounter once a month.
My first target will be getting a working kernel, compiled just for XO, that way it will reduce extra drivers and make the OS even smaller. Same with alsa etc.
ttuuxxx
This last one (the kernel) might not be as simple as it sounds.
I guess a question would be what the starting point should be.
Compiling the 2.6.30.5 puppy patched kernel with the XO 2.6.30 config results in an unusable kernel. OLPC config has extended kernel hacking, security and nfs activated. It is not clear which of these are really needed for the XO hardware and may be patched by OLPC.
3-4 Aufs2 patches that I tried with the 2.6.30 olpc kernel did not work so it makes trickier to start with the OLPC kernel. Using 2.6.30 olpc kernel you may also have the problems mentioned in my pervious mail, with the XO hardware.
The 2.6.25 olpc kernel needs both squashfs and Aufs patches (i did not try any) and maybe more to make it puppy 4.x compatible.
Of course you could start from a vanilla kernel but OLPC is using git and does not produce any patches for the vanilla kernel, so you'll may need to reproduce their work...
I would go with an OLPC kernel as base, but I know you are way ahead of my abilities in this front. Is just my 2 cents....

Regarding the XOpup, certainly OOo is an overkill. The major advantage over Abi/Grumeric is the PowerPoint compatibility but the XO does not even have a VGA out...
Regarding browsers, Opera seems to be the best compromise of features/performance on the XO under traditional distros though it requires Qt, but it can also serve as mail client, torrent client and feed-reader so it's a trait-off. Also Qt is needed for Skype too. In any case is good to have an HTML5 capable browser since that's the way the web moves and Sugar content is build around HTML5/Javascript.
Obviously a lot of Puppy drivers are useless but given the XO target audience you may want to retain some of the most popular modem drivers.

However, I think that the major goal should be to build a puppy that will not diverge too much from the original so available pet/sfs could be used without further modification. Would be nice for example if someone could just install Java and Python (required for Sugar) from the pet/sfs without recompiling, and in general allow the end user to build their XOpup to suit their needs without too much hassle.

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#39 Post by ttuuxxx »

Thanks mavrothal for a great heads-up post. Firefox would be my browser of choice since It autoupdates and I have it tweaked nicely in 2.14x with a couple of plugins, for wysiwyg and email. Opera I don't like the location of the tabs by default and there aren't many themes or plugins compared to Firefox. Yes in the past I was able to hack the tabs location to give it a regular general browser feel.
As for kernels and OS version compatibility, hmmm maybe download 2.14X and give it a try :) its based on a old 2 series kernel from like 2005, and most of 4 series apps work on it, once in awhile some apps don't work, but I would say 75% do, if anything GlibC is the issue not really the kernel version. The newer the kernel the larger the iso, the latest kernel is very large compared to 4 series kernel, something like 5000 lines of a code is added everyday to the latest kernel. I would say bleeding edge is out, that can be like the large other versions that XO already has, something like 4 series or even 3 series would be good, hmmm I would like to see it compatible with one of larger main stream distros like Slackware, Ubuntu or Debian.
Still tracking the shipping of the laptop, should be here by friday :)
It Depart Facility from LA yesterday, So it but be on its way overseas today.
ttuuxxx
http://audio.online-convert.com/ <-- excellent site
http://samples.mplayerhq.hu/A-codecs/ <-- Codec Test Files
http://html5games.com/ <-- excellent HTML5 games :)

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ttuuxxx
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#40 Post by ttuuxxx »

well I received the 2X laptops today, They are the current model, I did specifically asked for the next generation or prototype, The reason is that, If this take like 6 months like 2.14X did, Then once its finished it could be useless. Also The power adapters are North American, They must know by the address that its being shipped to Australia, So no I have to go out and buy 2x 12V adapters.
The Gui I really don't like, the symbol icons aren't really easily used, well I figure out a couple but most are like learning all over again. I just see it as confusing bloat, its not like windows, Linux, Mac. Come on whats up with that?
So tomorrow I'll go and buy some power adapters, looks like it doesn't have a wired network adsl plugin just wireless, so I'll have to buy a usb to adsl adapter. I know they sell them on ebay, but that could take 1.5 weeks or so. Also its very slow, I can't wait to remove the default layout etc.
ttuuxxx
http://audio.online-convert.com/ <-- excellent site
http://samples.mplayerhq.hu/A-codecs/ <-- Codec Test Files
http://html5games.com/ <-- excellent HTML5 games :)

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