Puppylinux for the OLPC laptops: XOpup

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mavrothal
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#46 Post by mavrothal »

01micko wrote: I meant in the tarball, I just tested, see screeny
I see. My mac has no problem with that :D and when a click on it in XOpup/Fedora/Ubuntu Midori/html viewer/Browser just opens it so I did not consider it an issue, but you are right should be corrected.
01micko wrote:I think we should stick with this kernel/aufs patch for awhile and work out the bugs.
I would agree with the kernel, but there is now Aufs2.1 that might address some of these issues. I'll give it a try and see if things improve at all.
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mavrothal
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new kernel

#47 Post by mavrothal »

mavrothal wrote: there is now Aufs2.1 that might address some of these issues. I'll give it a try and see if things improve at all.
Quoting myself... :roll:

I did make a new kernel with Aufs2.1 and now the devious powerapplet pet leaves no trace behind after installation :D :D .
I also have the sense that on "bad" cards/usbs corruption of the savefile during suspend is not that often but I did not check enough to verify.
Please download the new /boot10 folder (is only for the XO-1 not XO-1.5) and test.
You may need a new lupsave file though.
The new "boot10" folder with the new kernel vmlinuz/initrd.img is HERE

With this kernel "uname -r" should be: 2.6.31_xo1-20101006.1917.1.olpc.12d6406_PupAufs21
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01micko
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#48 Post by 01micko »

I did make a new kernel with Aufs2.1 and now the devious powerapplet pet leaves no trace behind after installation :D :D
Indeed it doesn't :)

I downloaded 'boot10', overwrote old one, deleted pupsave and followed the same procedure as in a couple of posts back on the same stick and no problem so far.

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mavrothal
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powerd pet

#49 Post by mavrothal »

Here is a pet that in my hands solves most (if not all) of the squashfs corruption issues observed at times, when waking up from suspend.
What it does is a) to snapmerge whatever is in RAM before going to sleep and b) add a 5 sec delay between the final sync and device powerdown allowing any caches to be written.

As a result it takes up to 15sec longer for the XO to actually go to suspend but this is happening after the screen goes black or the lid closed. It just takes longer for the powerlight to start blinking (the indication of suspend) and you will see USB activity (if your stick has a light) the first few seconds after the "suspend"

Pls test with your "bad" media and report
Attachments
powerd_xo-1.pet
Power management for XOpup
(21.47 KiB) Downloaded 899 times
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mavrothal
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recover lost sound!

#50 Post by mavrothal »

I finally tracked down the sound issue in Aufs (again) since sudenly is giving .wh.* devices! (though I think the real source of the problem is udev/pup_event)

To fix it do this.
In another machine (or the XO running Fedora11+/Sugar0.84+ :D) as su/sudo loop mount your lupusave.2fs, say in /mnt/pup and delete the white space dev files. eg

Code: Select all

mkdir /mnt/pup # if not already there
mount -o loop /media/XOpup/lupusave.2fs /mnt/pup # or whatever name your file/stick has
cd /mnt/pup/dev
rm -f .wh.*
rm -f */.wh.*
cd
umount /mnt/pup
umount /media/XOpup
# 99% of the time this fixes it. If not add this step before u-mounting the stick
mount -o loop -o ro /media/XOpup/lupusave.2fs /mnt/pup
fsck.ext2 /media/XOpup/lupusave.2fs #or fsck.ext3 if you have .3fs file
# Ignore the warning and check the fs. Fix any issues. Usually timestamps.
umount /mnt/pup
umount /media/XOpup
Put your stick back on your XO and boot. Sound should be there :D

Now if someone (hi Mick :wink:) can write a script that could do that in XOpup, or check and correct during shutdown, wouldbe nice.
Though is not trivial since white space files are not shown because of Aufs configuration and changing that opens the door for all kind of user messups :roll:
Last edited by mavrothal on Sun 17 Oct 2010, 09:54, edited 1 time in total.
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rrolsbe
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Re: powerd pet

#51 Post by rrolsbe »

mavrothal wrote:Here is a pet that in my hands solves most (if not all) of the squashfs corruption issues observed at times, when waking up from suspend.
What it does is a) to snapmerge whatever is in RAM before going to sleep and b) add a 5 sec delay between the final sync and device powerdown allowing any caches to be written.

As a result it takes up to 15sec longer for the XO to actually go to suspend but this is happening after the screen goes black or the lid closed. It just takes longer for the powerlight to start blinking (the indication of suspend) and you will see USB activity (if your stick has a light) the first few seconds after the "suspend"

Pls test with your "bad" media and report
Clarification, are the files inside the readonly squash file system getting corrupted? or is the sfs file itself getting corrupted? If the sfs file itself is getting corrupted, I think the file system itself would be corrupted; therefore, any file located on the boot media might be corrupted?

Regards, Ron

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mavrothal
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Re: powerd pet

#52 Post by mavrothal »

Woops...
double post
Last edited by mavrothal on Fri 08 Oct 2010, 07:22, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: powerd pet

#53 Post by mavrothal »

rrolsbe wrote:
Clarification, are the files inside the readonly squash file system getting corrupted? or is the sfs file itself getting corrupted? If the sfs file itself is getting corrupted, I think the file system itself would be corrupted; therefore, any file located on the boot media might be corrupted?

Regards, Ron
Actually the corruption is in RAM! Because probably some device may try to direct access memory (DMA) while the machine is asleep forcing a memory self refresh that generates the corruption (something like that was explained to me :D ).

Short answer, NONE of the actual lupu-511.sfs, lupusave.3fs of any other sfs is corrupted, UNLESS you save them.
The lupu-511.sfs is read-only so does not get corrupted anyway but the lupusave is read-write and gets corrupted on save after the RAM corruption.

My advice. If you see that something is "wrong" just "hard reboot" pressing the powerd button for 5sec so changes will not have the chance to be saved into the files. On reboot should be fine, but the session data will be lost :(

However, the new powerd_xo.pet should eliminate these instances since saves all the RAM data before suspend and adds 5 extra seconds after the save step and before device(usb/card) poweroff

I hope this is clear
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rrolsbe
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All good now

#54 Post by rrolsbe »

Just a quick post.

I replaced the boot10 folder, cleaned up the wh files and loaded the powerd/powerapp pet files. After doing this using a new pupsave file, everything seems to be working fine. Thanks for the clarification on the corruption problem. I knew the pupsave file and /mnt/home were the only entities mounted read/write; therefore, your explanation of the corruption problem makes total sense.

BTW, all this was done booting from the same flaky usb stick.

Thanks for all the hard work!!!
Regards, Ron
Time for RC4??

UPDATE: The powerapp has two battery symbols on the desktop and ps indicates there are TWO copies of powerapplet_xo running. I

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mavrothal
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Re: All good now

#55 Post by mavrothal »

rrolsbe wrote: Time for RC4??
We are cooking 1.0! but the power management although improved is not there yet
rrolsbe wrote:UPDATE: The powerapp has two battery symbols on the desktop and ps indicates there are TWO copies of powerapplet_xo running. I
Does it persists through reboot?
There is a problem with PPM in puppy/lupu in recent releases. Till the next release :wink: try installing the file from HERE (is not a pet). Works much better in my hands
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rrolsbe
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Re: All good now

#56 Post by rrolsbe »

Does it persists through reboot?
Rebooted again now only a single copy.
There is a problem with PPM in puppy/lupu in recent releases. Till the next release :wink: try installing the file from HERE (is not a pet). Works much better in my hands.
I will give it a try thanks!

Regards, Ron

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RE: Howto for XOPup is needed

#57 Post by Fox7777 »

We have XOpup-1.0_RC3 on a usb stick booting on Cl1 Q2E45. When it gets to switch root, we get a kernel panel, not syncing message. Has anyone had this problem and is there a solution for it? Thanks

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Re: RE: Howto for XOPup is needed

#58 Post by mavrothal »

Fox7777 wrote:We have XOpup-1.0_RC3 on a usb stick booting on Cl1 Q2E45. When it gets to switch root, we get a kernel panel, not syncing message. Has anyone had this problem and is there a solution for it? Thanks
Something is messed up with your setup/stick but without any info we can not know what. Kernel panic can happen for many reasons so if you want to get at the bottom of it provide some more info about the problem and the setup (a good idea in general when reporting problems)
So do the following
1) Boot in Sugar and verify that XOpup-1.0_RC3.tar.gz that you downloaded in intact eg has the correct md5sum. In sugar terminal type "md5sum /path_to_file/XOpup-1.0_RC3.tar.gz". The output sould be: bc3f733dfb90f139a5f34cb75077a37d
2) while still in Sugar put your usb stick in and from the terminal issue

Code: Select all

su
fdisk -l /dev/sda
Post the output (copy/paste) here so we can see how your stick looks like partition/filesystem-wise
3) still in the terminal type

Code: Select all

ls -al /media/stick_name/
where stick_name is the actual name of your stick, and post the output here so we can see what other files my be missing of conflict with XOpup.

Another common source of problems when writing/extracting something in a USB/SDcard on the XO, is that the device may be removed before it has the chance to be written fully (I did it few times :roll: ).
Just type "sync" in the terminal when you copy extract something to make sure everything is in sync
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RE: Howto for XOPup is needed

#59 Post by Fox7777 »

Problem solved: In summary you need the developer key, the correct firmware installed, the right md5sum on your XOpup download. We extracted to /media/disk on a formatted usb stick with partition 1 as ext3 and partition 2 as swap. (This was done on another computer running Mepis Linux 8.5 so does not have to be on the OLPC). Everything seemed to work OK including sound and wifi (as eth1). This transforms the OLPC from a Fedora novelty toy to something that would be very useful with super wifi, office suite, ability to add more programs, etc. and it is lightweight, rugged, waterproof, dirt proof, etc. Thanks again.

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mavrothal
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XOpup-1.0 is out.

#60 Post by mavrothal »

XOpup gained some more stability and features and is out as XOpup-1.0 :D
Check the top post for more info and download.

So now what...?
For v2 we* are thinking decreasing the size of the build while keeping Ubuntu compatibility is a main goal.
To that extend we think to remove the IceWM, the CD and DVD related applications, PPLOG and server apps and other not likely to be often used apps.
Replace Abiword, Calculate and paint with lighter versions etc.
The originals are going to be available as a separate sfs or pets but not in the build.
The idea is to build a small and even more efficient/fast base and allow users to customize it according to their needs by adding on top anything, from OpenOffice to... Sugar!!! while the base remains sufficient for most daily uses.

If you have any suggestions fore or against specific apps, or better yet can help out, let us know.

* we = 01micko and me :D
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#61 Post by 01micko »

8)
XOpup gained some more stability and features and is out as XOpup-1.0
Check the top post for more info and download.
I can't wait to get out my razor! :lol:

This version indeed feels nice and solid on the xo-1.

Any feedback will be greatly appreciated.

Cheers
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tony
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#62 Post by tony »

Hi All,

how does this version of Pup work with the package manager?

Regards Tony.

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mavrothal
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#63 Post by mavrothal »

tony wrote:how does this version of Pup work with the package manager?
I'm not sure I understand the question, but XOpup is Puppylinux 5.1.1 (lupu) at its core. So has quickpet and its PPM uses the lucid pup as well as the Ubuntu-lucid repositories, (if activated)

If you are asking how XOpup-1.0 compares with the previous versions (vN/RC) in PPM performance?... Is better :D
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rrolsbe
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XOpup-1.0

#64 Post by rrolsbe »

Finally got the time to try out the released version of Puppy on my XO-1. Seems to be working quite fine. I like the idea of striping out a lot of the applications that are currently loaded into RAM at start up (IE.. the lupu-511.sfs content). This would leave more room to actually run applications without out running out of RAM. After all, any applications installed outside of the lupu-511.sfs file would not be loaded into RAM at boot time (of course they would load into RAM slower from the flash media). I use Seamonkey or Firefox in lieu of the built in browser. It would be nice to have that inside of the lupu-511.sfs file (would load faster).

A few questions:

Puppy normally sets up half the available RAM as /tmp. I think /tmp is were flash writes are normally cached but Puppy running from an SDHC card does not cache these writes (not sure why booting from USB caches flash writes but booting from SDHC doesn't? -- both use NAND flash? Does/could this require less RAM for /tmp? (leaving more RAM to run applications)

Is there enough resources to remaster the lupu-511.sfs file while booted from the OLPC (maybe to add Seamonkey)? If not, I think there are other ways to add applications to the main lupu-511.sfs wherewithal.? Seamonkey is the only large executable I run often that SHOULD load faster from RAM as opposed to loading from flash memory. I like the idea of making ALL the normal stuff striped from the XO version of Puppy available as SFS or PETS.

Last question. I boot into Puppy on my ASUS netbook using a write-locked SDHC bootable card (for security reasons while traveling) and simply power off the netbook using the power switch (nothing can get corrupted on the SDHC card because it is write locked) Would this be possible with the XO? I know the machine could not use a swap file from a write locked SDHC card or would crash when it ran out of RAM..

Again, Thanks for all the hard work.
Regards, Ron

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mavrothal
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#65 Post by mavrothal »

Hi Ron,
When puppy runs from a USB flash runs in mode 13 so ALL writes are in /tmpfs and periodically are saved in the savefile. Running from an SDcard is in mode 6 and saves directly to the read-write layer eg your card. Thus no tempfs. These are the default for puppy in general.
The Remaster Puppy application does not work in XOpup because it is setup to make a new iso, which is useless for XOpup anyway. You can do it manually though. You'll need to write the contents of lupu-511.sfs to a folder, incorporate your changes and remake the lupu-511.sfs.
In the example we assume that lupu-511.sfs as well as the seamonkey.pet is at the root of your stick. In terminal type

Code: Select all

cd /mnt/home
pet2tgz seamonkey.pet
mkdir newsfs
cd newsfs
mkdir sfs
mkdir puppydata
mount -o loop ../lupu-511.sfs sfs
cp -aR sfs/* puppydata/  # will take some time
cd puppydata
tar xvzf ../../seamonkey.tgz
cd ../
mksquashfs puppydata/ lupu-511.sfs  # will take some time
# a new lupu-511.sfs file will be created in your newsfs folder
umount sfs # thiis is the original
mount lupu-511.sfs sfs # check that the new lupu-511sfs has your changes and is OK
umount sfs
mv ../lupu-511.sfs ../lupu-511._sfs_orig # to have it in case something goes wrong
cp -a  lupu-511.sfs ../ 
Your seamonky containing sfs is ready. Reboot to use it.
You will also need to remove the previous savefile or folders.

Alternatively, you can run XOpup, make all the changes you want including network setup, browser, bookmarks etc, save to a lupusave file and then merge the lupu-511.sfs and lupusave.2fs into a new lupu-511.sfs. eg loop mount them in sfs1 and sfs2 copy their contents in puppydata and make a new lupu-511.sfs from this. This will be your own XOpup with everything you need and will always be pristine! (just make sure that is not 300MB :D)

Running from a locked card and without swap is a problem. Pretty soon the XO-1 will run out of memory. What you can do is to set your root partition on the card read-only (though programs may change it) or if you are happy with your modified sfs just don't save the session at the end. However in all cases the lupu-511.sfs file is always pristine. Is read-only. Is the lupusave sfs or your save partition that has all the changes.


BTW :shock: : I have made a pet with the wxcam 1.0.6 camera application, but I can not fully test it since my XO-1 camera is brocken.
If any one wants to test and report, is HERE
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