XOpup Interest Group. Puppy Linux for the OLPC XO-1 laptop

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mavrothal
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disassemble w/pictures

#46 Post by mavrothal »

ttuuxxx wrote: Do you know how to open up the XO so that I can remove and replace the sd card inside, not the external one under the monitor. The one that the actual OS is located on.
ttuuxxx
Opening the XO is simple. However you CAN NOT remove the internal RAW flash memory that is wired to the motherboard. The SD slot is your best option for a semi-permanent storage/booting and the USB for err... USB.

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ttuuxxx
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#47 Post by ttuuxxx »

Thanks for the images Raffy, I managed to get it 50% apart and then came across mavrothal input, lol

Ok mavrothal how to I change the bios so it boot with SD card under the monitor. I don't see any bios options when booting.
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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#48 Post by mavrothal »

ttuuxxx wrote:Thanks for the images Raffy, I managed to get it 50% apart and then came across mavrothal input, lol

Ok mavrothal how to I change the bios so it boot with SD card under the monitor. I don't see any bios options when booting.
ttuuxxx
No BIOS :shock:
XO is using OFW (see previous page).
Basically the OFW looks in order to the USB, SDcard, Internal NAND to find a /boot folder and an olpc.fth file within this folder and does whatever this olpc.fth file is telling it. Basically 3 things, what is the root partition and its file system, the path to vmlinuz and the path to initrd (if used).
Here is my olpc.fth located in the SDcard that will boot Ubuntu from the SDcard if the "O" game key is pressed, and Fedora/Suagr from the NAND if not.
/boot/olpc.fth (in the SDcard)

Code: Select all

\ Boot script
\
\ overclock first
\
7de009e
5dd
4c000014
wrmsr
\
\ end of overclock
\
\ boot option
\ 
game-key-mask h# 80 and if
    " ro root=/dev/mmcblk0p1 rootfstype=ext2 console=tty0 fbcon=font:SUN12x22 video=fb:1200x900 loglevel=3 splash" to boot-file
    " sd:\boot\vmlinuz" to boot-device
    " sd:\boot\olpcrd.img" to ramdisk
else
\ original teapot's version
\
\    " ro root=mtd0 rootfstype=jffs2 console=tty0 fbcon=font:SUN12x22" to boot-file
\    " nand:\boot\vmlinuz" to boot-device
\    " nand:\boot\olpcrd.img" to ramdisk
\
\ f11-xo1 vesion
\
    " root=/dev/mtdblock0 rootfstype=jffs2 console=ttyS0,115200 console=tty0 fbcon=font:SUN12x22 selinux=0" to boot-file
    " nand:\boot\vmlinuz" to boot-device
    " nand:\boot\initrd.img" to ramdisk
    setup-smbios
    unfreeze
    dcon-unfreeze
    visible
then
boot
The commented out "original version" is for booting F9-based/os802 (the one that came with the XO). The other is for F11-based system.
Now, the "setup-smbios" you need to simulate a "normal" BIOS. The unfreeze etc is so you get to see the console during boot.
Setting console, fonts, etc is not nessecary but good to have before you know you do not need...
( I hope you noticed the "overclock" :D )


look here for more OFW and here for a booting specifically

PS: If you copy/paste my olpc.fth file make sure there is no <return> in the long lines that look-like they are braking. The lines that end with: to boot-file. Should be in one line.
Last edited by mavrothal on Sat 24 Oct 2009, 06:34, edited 3 times in total.

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ttuuxxx
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Re: disassemble w/pictures

#49 Post by ttuuxxx »

mavrothal wrote:
ttuuxxx wrote: Do you know how to open up the XO so that I can remove and replace the sd card inside, not the external one under the monitor. The one that the actual OS is located on.
ttuuxxx
Opening the XO is simple. However you CAN NOT remove the internal RAW flash memory that is wired to the motherboard. The SD slot is your best option for a semi-permanent storage/booting and the USB for err... USB.
actually if look at this image the microSD internal card is removable
http://wiki.laptop.org/images/f/f0/XO_1 ... rboard.png
just found this image after putting it all back together, grrr, so still trying to figure out how to change the boot order?
ttuuxxx
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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Re: disassemble w/pictures

#50 Post by mavrothal »

ttuuxxx wrote: actually if look at this image the microSD internal card is removable
http://wiki.laptop.org/images/f/f0/XO_1 ... rboard.png
just found this image after putting it all back together, grrr,
No you are good :D .
This is for XO-1.5, the machine under development. You have XO-1

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mavrothal
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Unlock your XO

#51 Post by mavrothal »

A very important point.
Unless you get a developers key and inactivate security in the OFW promt, YOU CAN NOT boot other OSs! Not even unsigned OLPC development builds!!!
(ok, you can but you need to have the security key in the /security folder of this OS)
So do it before you attempt to get anything else running on the XO. It take a day to get a key...

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ttuuxxx
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Re: disassemble w/pictures

#52 Post by ttuuxxx »

mavrothal wrote:
ttuuxxx wrote: actually if look at this image the microSD internal card is removable
http://wiki.laptop.org/images/f/f0/XO_1 ... rboard.png
just found this image after putting it all back together, grrr,
No you are good :D .
This is for XO-1.5, the machine under development. You have XO-1
That is kind of what I asked for, man that would be simple I could soldier a few jumper wires to the micoSD slot and soldier in a external adapter, Then I could just unplug the original OS and toss in my testing Os.
This is starting to be a lot of complex work to just make a OS, I wish they would of sent me some developer specs/how to etc and make the laptop developer friendly, It was way easier for me to change and upgrade a motherboard in my old Toshiba laptop then just to be able
to boot this machine, lol
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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Re: Unlock your XO

#53 Post by ttuuxxx »

mavrothal wrote:A very important point.
Unless you get a developers key and inactivate security in the OFW promt, YOU CAN NOT boot other OSs! Not even unsigned OLPC development builds!!!
(ok, you can but you need to have the security key in the /security folder of this OS)
So do it before you attempt to get anything else running on the XO. It take a day to get a key...
Ok here's a question how do I obtain a developers key if i'm not using wireless internet? It says it takes a day or two, I get that it needs to get one via online.
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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USB

#54 Post by raffy »

From the support FAQ:
How_can_I_access_the_Internet.3F
Can I use a wired Ethernet connection?

Yes, you can connect to a wired Internet connection; use a USB-to-Ethernet adapter.
I guess it should be easy if you have a wireless router. There must be getting started page - not available as I type this. This one is OK.
Last edited by raffy on Sat 24 Oct 2009, 08:57, edited 1 time in total.
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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mavrothal
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Re: Unlock your XO

#55 Post by mavrothal »

ttuuxxx wrote: Ok here's a question how do I obtain a developers key if i'm not using wireless internet? It says it takes a day or two, I get that it needs to get one via online.
ttuuxxx
lower in the same page :D

BTW, soldering another microSD would not solve any of the booting problems. Actually the machine would be bricked because would not even have some OFW to start. So leave it alone :D
The SD slot is ok as soon as you wrestle the olpc.fth file :D
If you want a walk-through on how to install os802 to an SD card and boot from there let me know. Some relevant links were given in one of my previous page post.
Basically you download the ext3 image, mount and correct the initrd to load USB/SD devices first, correct the olpc.fth to boot from /dev/mmcblk0p1 (the first partition in the SD card) and the filesystem to ext2 or ext3 (depending on the card formatting), copy it to the Sdcard put in in the XO slot and power up. Should boot from the card fine.

PS: On a second thought, I'll just tell you (or any other interested) :D
So here we go installing and booting from USB/SD in a secure XO machine :D

Download http://xs-dev.laptop.org/~cscott/xo-1/s ... t3.img.bz2

as "su" expand to the SDcard

Code: Select all

bunzip2 -c xo-1-olpc-stream-staging-devel_ext3.img.bz2 | dd of=/dev/sdX bs=1024
If you do that on the XO make sure your card does not automount (it will if is fat/vfat). Unmount from the Journal/frame NOT the terminal. The path of the card on the XO is /dev/mmcblk0.
Resize your partition with fdisk (make sure you add some swap partition here)
Resize the filesystem with fsck.ext3 (on the mounted partition)

Code: Select all

cd  /SDcard_path/boot
mkdir initramfs
cd initramfs
gunzip -c ../olpcrd.img | cpio -i
nano initutil.py # or your favorite editor
Find "ohci-hcd", duplicate that line and change "ohci-hcd" to "ehci-hcd" on the second line, then save the file and exit from the editor

Code: Select all

find . -print | cpio -H newc -o | gzip -9 >../olpcrd-modified.img
cd ..
ln -sf olpcrd-modified.img olpcrd.img
rm -rf initramfs
Modify /etc/fstab to add the swap and see if any other paths need adjustment (they should not)
Modify /boot/olc.fth file of the card to

Code: Select all

\ boot script

" root=/dev/mmcblk0p1 rootfstype=ext3 console=tty0 fbcon=font:SUN12x22" to boot-file 
" sd:\boot\vmlinuz" to boot-device 
" sd:\boot\olpcrd.img" to ramdisk 
setup-smbios 
unfreeze 
dcon-unfreeze 
visible
boot
Note: The "setup-smbios" is not needed but is for future use. If you have problems booting remove this line.
If you do not have the developer's key yet, boot the XO from the NAND (if not already) and copy the /security folder from the NAND to the card
Copy also the /home/.devkey.html to the card
finally copy the /ofw to the card
If you have the key and inactivated security forget these 3 steps.
Reboot
Should boot from the card.
You'll end up in a home screen w/o activities! You can download activities to a USB stick and follow these instructions

Disclaimer is some time that I did not do that but looks :shock: fine

PPS As I said before XO is known not to play well with many SDcards. Besides not booting from some of them, it also tends to corrupt them occasionally, particularly the bigger/high density ones. So after making a bootable SDcard I would give it a couple of days of "playing" time with several reboots (including hard ones) to make sure that it "likes" the card, before I put any kind of serious work on it. Needles to reiterate the need for often backup :D

hailpuppy
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Where have all the heroes gone???

#56 Post by hailpuppy »

:( HI i just joined puppy forum but have been an intense puppy linux lover since i first came across puppy 4.2. I love puppy for many reasons. I have an XO also with me.I got it from the Sri Lankan OLPC project specially to see if I can check puppy on Xo. Well as all of you guys might agree puppy seems the best Os for XO. Well apart from the specially configured windows XP for XO Laptop, puppy seems the only practical linux OS whichcan turn XO into a really usable laptop. Whatever said and done XO laptop looks merely a playmate with Sugar on it. I do agree that Sugar may be able to make small children get connected with xO but when they grow up XO will be of no use to them only because Sugar powers Xo. I am not from a programmers background but i can work out a way to put you guys across with with OLPC guys in Sri lanka and another set of guys who are interested in diving into XO in turms of coding and stuff. If Barry can also take a step forward into being a bit more interested in the XO implementation of Puppy it might produce a wonderful product.XO's hardware comes bundles up with some cool features as well.Just imagine the benefits of XO and Puppy getting together.I v been following this thread from the very beginning and found that you guys seemingly have taken a rest. Just had to say that I love your brave hearted effort to make Puppy XO friendly. keep it up guys.!!!! And thankx!!1!

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mavrothal
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#57 Post by mavrothal »

Patients young apprentice :D
Besides ttuuxxx said is going to give monthly reports and is only the 29th... :D :D :D

Seriously though ttuuxxx, I hope by now you have your developer's key a working SDcard (with one of the available XO OSs) some basic idea what the XO can and can't do with its original (or other) OS.

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ttuuxxx
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#58 Post by ttuuxxx »

mavrothal wrote:Patients young apprentice :D
Besides ttuuxxx said is going to give monthly reports and is only the 29th... :D :D :D

Seriously though ttuuxxx, I hope by now you have your developer's key a working SDcard (with one of the available XO OSs) some basic idea what the XO can and can't do with its original (or other) OS.
Hi mavrothal This project will be mostly weekend work, The reason is that I getup at 5am mon-fri for construction work and don't get home until 3:30, then I spend a bit of time with the kids, eat and watch about 1hr of tv and I'm dead to the world, lol, Man I should use my computer diploma instead of working hard, lol
Lets just say I'm tired early, I might mess around with 2.14X because that is really simple, weekends I'm refreshed and actually this weekend will be a long weekend for me :) So Saturday, Sunday, Monday I'll work on it, probably about 50hrs worth, I can easily spend 16hr days on puppy :) .
Also as Sugar goes, well I won't make it default but maybe as a sfs or something, I've seen Xo on ebay for sale that people have put ubuntu in only because they hate sugar, I've been letting my kids play with the xo's to get input, and they have difficulties closing sugar apps because they aren't well defined, The laptop stopped in the middle of shutting down a few times etc. Sugar should go.

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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#59 Post by mavrothal »

ttuuxxx wrote: Hi mavrothal This project will be mostly weekend work, The reason is that I getup at 5am mon-fri for construction work and don't get home until 3:30, then I spend a bit of time with the kids, eat and watch about 1hr of tv and I'm dead to the world, lol, Man I should use my computer diploma instead of working hard, lol
Lets just say I'm tired early, I might mess around with 2.14X because that is really simple, weekends I'm refreshed and actually this weekend will be a long weekend for me :) So Saturday, Sunday, Monday I'll work on it, probably about 50hrs worth, I can easily spend 16hr days on puppy :) .
:!: :!: :!:
Also as Sugar goes, well I won't make it default but maybe as a sfs or something, I've seen Xo on ebay for sale that people have put ubuntu in only because they hate sugar, I've been letting my kids play with the xo's to get input, and they have difficulties closing sugar apps because they aren't well defined, The laptop stopped in the middle of shutting down a few times etc. Sugar should go.
ttuuxxx
Freeze at shutdown is a known bug (as if this solves the issue... :wink: ) happening when 2 simultaneous instructions are issued. Just ctrl-alt-f3 (the 3 dot button) to get another console and then the shutdown progresses normally.
Sugar has evolved from what you have (0.82) and improved considerably in the current 0.86 version. However 0.86 is not really available for the XO. (You can try it if you really want but is still unstable. The non-xo versions from the same link should work ok in a "normal" computer though) Sugar 0.84 is available but with major breakers (eg no camera).
In any case and in contrast to some claims Sugar is not self taught... it does need a lot of guidance.
Making a Sugar sfs would be supper, but lets worry about this latter :D

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alejol
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Continue like that, man! Do not give up!

#60 Post by alejol »

ttuuxxx, I live in Uruguay and my daughter Emilia has one XO.
I am very dissapointed with Sugar, and very upset with Journal. It is the worst file manager, and one of worst MIT's ideas. Journal impedes the sharing or saving files in a simple fashion with non-XO machines. The use of .metadata files obscures each file.
And Sugar interface is not standard, and our childrens do not learn how to use a *real* computer.
I appreciate your effort, and the hardware of the XO is not standard which makes your job difficult.
I will be very pleased to try Puppy in the XO .

My best wishes to be able to successfully complete your project!!

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ttuuxxx
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Re: Continue like that, man! Do not give up!

#61 Post by ttuuxxx »

alejol wrote:ttuuxxx, I live in Uruguay and my daughter Emilia has one XO.
I am very dissapointed with Sugar, and very upset with Journal. It is the worst file manager, and one of worst MIT's ideas. Journal impedes the sharing or saving files in a simple fashion with non-XO machines. The use of .metadata files obscures each file.
And Sugar interface is not standard, and our childrens do not learn how to use a *real* computer.
I appreciate your effort, and the hardware of the XO is not standard which makes your job difficult.
I will be very pleased to try Puppy in the XO .

My best wishes to be able to successfully complete your project!!
Hi I agree and many others do also, I think I'll make it a sfs, I've been working 21 days straight including weekends, and working on XO in spare time, Soon I'll be off for 3 weeks straight for the Christmas holidays. I've tried using Dpup but had some compiling issues, so now I'm trying to build Karmic Cola Upup, which is the latest woof series, That start is always slow, but once it takes off it should be great.
As for Sugar, I think I will make it a sfs, that can be loaded at boot or NOT :wink: Then everyone will be happy. Also I was thinking as to use IceWm as the window manager, the reason, I made some great themes in 4.2 that weren't all used. Plus I converted a couple. I don't see why if they are worried about kids messing up the system why I couldn't make a hidden or locked folder with .desktop files for configuring/installing etc and just keep the main apps in menu :)
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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Re: Continue like that, man! Do not give up!

#62 Post by mavrothal »

ttuuxxx wrote: I've tried using Dpup but had some compiling issues, so now I'm trying to build Karmic Cola Upup, which is the latest woof series, That start is always slow, but once it takes off it should be great.
Is that for the XO? If yes with which kernel?
DebXO is a fairly decent Debian xo-port and it may serve as a good starting point.

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ttuuxxx
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Re: Continue like that, man! Do not give up!

#63 Post by ttuuxxx »

mavrothal wrote:
ttuuxxx wrote: I've tried using Dpup but had some compiling issues, so now I'm trying to build Karmic Cola Upup, which is the latest woof series, That start is always slow, but once it takes off it should be great.
Is that for the XO? If yes with which kernel?
DebXO is a fairly decent Debian xo-port and it may serve as a good starting point.
yes that for XO as kernels go really what I have in mind is to use the oldest one that will work with hardware.
linux_kernel-2.6.30.5-tickless_smp-7-p4.pet <-- 35MB pet
linux_kernel-2.6.21.7-ide-uniproc-1-p4.pet <-- 25MB pet
that is just an example of the current kernels that haven't been recompiled. The thing is If I was going to go with Karmic, I could make it specifically for XO or maybe patch it and then everyone could use it. The ubuntu version of XO works on regular pc's also doesn't it?
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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Re: Continue like that, man! Do not give up!

#64 Post by mavrothal »

ttuuxxx wrote:
yes that for XO as kernels go really what I have in mind is to use the oldest one that will work with hardware.
linux_kernel-2.6.30.5-tickless_smp-7-p4.pet <-- 35MB pet
linux_kernel-2.6.21.7-ide-uniproc-1-p4.pet <-- 25MB pet
that is just an example of the current kernels that haven't been recompiled. The thing is If I was going to go with Karmic, I could make it specifically for XO or maybe patch it and then everyone could use it. The ubuntu version of XO works on regular pc's also doesn't it?
ttuuxxx
As far as I know EVERY distro that worked on the XO is using the custom olpc kernels. Ubuntu is using the pristine one from os767 or os802(the one that came with your XOs). DebXO is using a beefed up os767 kernel but the guy that made it was the OLPC kernel developer at the time...
And no, XO kernels and distro ports will not run on normal hardware. Not even in emulation! there are some special qemu kernel versions that will run on emulation for development but you must use the non-qemu versions for the XO.
Also a far as I know XO is also _very_ picky on the initramfs (if used)
So I would think trying to patch/modify the os802 kernel and build puppy from there would be a way to go.
Alternatively you can use the DebXO that may be easier to combine with Dpup. However for sources etc you must go to git that the developer uses.

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ttuuxxx
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#65 Post by ttuuxxx »

Thanks that saved me a lot of work :)
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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