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

[wmb@firmworks.com]

Just because drivers are available doesn't mean that everything "just works" with no effort. Drivers for the XO-1 hardware were available by the time you started trying to put Puppy on it, but it took a lot of fiddling to get everything to work together just so.

But having done all these for the XO-1 (whenever/if they are done) doesn't mean that adapting to XO-1.5 provided that the kernel is there, will be considerably easier?

The XO-1.5 is starting to ramp up production.

Alright!
Can I have one now that they are no so precious few anymore?
(buying it is fine)

Information about applying for a developer machine can be found at
http://blog.laptop.org/2009/09/28/xo-1- ... ontribute/ . I don't know how many of the new systems are earmarked for developers.

[mavrothal]

Information about applying for a developer machine can be found at
http://blog.laptop.org/2009/09/28/xo-1- ... ontribute/ . I don't know how many of the new systems are earmarked for developers.

Yeh, I know that. But applying as a "developer" would be a joke.
Do they have systems for "enthusiasts" or for sale or G1G1 or because I'm a nice guy?
I guess I'll have to ask, but whom?

[wmb@firmworks.com]

Yeh, I know that. But applying as a "developer" would be a joke.

I'm not sure why. You managed to make progress with XO-1. The work you did on configuring a suitable kernel was instrumental in getting Puppy to work on XO-1. Just because you needed the help of others to complete the task does not invalidate your contributions in spearheading the effort and configuring the kernel. The work that you did constitutes development.

Do they have systems for "enthusiasts" or for sale or G1G1 or because I'm a nice guy?

No. The last time we did a G1G1 it almost killed us because we had to preorder and pay for a bunch of systems to avoid the order-fulfillment fiasco of the first G1G1, then we sold very few of them. Instead of raising money for use in deploying laptops to children, it was a net loss that resulted in us having to lay off developers.

I guess I'll have to ask, but whom?

Well, you already asked me, and I told you the answer. You can continue to ask me the same question if you like, but it will just make me irritated, and you will risk losing the attention of the one knowledgeable OLPC expert that you have.

[mavrothal]

Well, you already asked me, and I told you the answer. You can continue to ask me the same question if you like, but it will just make me irritated, and you will risk losing the attention of the one knowledgeable OLPC expert that you have.

Oh come on...
I asked about XO-1.5 which thus far was very limited and available only to core developers/testers. There is no indication yet that the wider, "contributors program" is/will include XO-1.5.

You gave me an answer that I did/do not consider correct. I'm sure semantics can be different but a developer should be able to write at least 5 lines of code, let alone to work on the projects suggested in the link you provided.

Then I asked a different question. Who is deciding for XO-1.5 machines that are/when given outside the developers and/or if the contributors program will include XO-1.5?
Then you got irritated.

Anyway. All this is irrelevant to this thread. Let's leave it here. I just hope that the attention warning refers to me personally and not to the XOpup.

[Aitch]

Mavrothal

As an outsider looking in, I got the impression wmb was saying you are more of a developer than you give yourself credit - perhaps you could just apply for an XO1-5 anyway, referencing this thread....?

wmb,

I'm a bit puzzled by the decision to use non-meshing network chipset....I thought that was THE major selling point for outlying region use, using XOs to build local networks?
Certainly featured in a fair few videos I remember....and may just make XO1s more collectable

Did you see my links on mesh stuff a few pages back?

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 496#379496

It got kinda glossed over as ttuuxxx & mavrothal had another focus

Seems other people liked it...

Thanks for your invaluable contribution, btw

ttuuxxx is still grinding away at this, but finds XOs more frustrating than his other projects, as I understand it

Aitch

[wmb@firmworks.com]

I'm a bit puzzled by the decision to use non-meshing network chipset....I thought that was THE major selling point for outlying region use, using XOs to build local networks?

We wanted to support mesh but a combination of other constraints more or less forced us to choose the MV8686 device, which cannot do mesh.

Ad-hoc mode satisfies some of the important use cases, such as "several children sitting under a tree".

ttuuxxx is still grinding away at this, but finds XOs more frustrating than his other projects, as I understand it

Aitch

I'm not surprised. The XO is close enough to a PC that people want to treat it as one and assume that all of their hard-won PC knowledge is correct, but far enough away that said knowledge is often not correct.

PC-ness is like a giant black hole that, once you get too close, either sucks you right into complete lock-step or kills you.

[mavrothal]

In the mean time I made a Tiny Core Linux version for the XO-1 that is almost usable at 33MB.
What is relevant for XOpup is that in tinycore that saves user data as tar.gz also takes for ever to shutdown saving the data. However, tinycore provides the option at boot to save the home folder (and others) uncompressed in the media. Maybe scripting-competent people can take a look on how it is doing it.

[hailpuppy]

HI Mavrothal,

where can we get the iso buddy?Can you provide us a download link?

[ttuuxxx]

hmmmm when I first read about mavrothal's tiny core I was thinking man he gets off topic, Then I figured if he had a basic Iso, It wouldn't be all that hard to convert it to a puppy type release since it already uses sfs, that could be renamed back to sfs, add the puppy package manager, some useful puppy dialogs etc. and the end result could be 1/3 smaller than puppy.
kind of like a hybrid or similar to what woof is.
ttuuxxx

[mavrothal]

hailpuppy, just follow the link

ttuuxxx what I really wanted to point out is exactly what I said , the save options.
Come to think of it though, I did use the XOpup kernel with Aufs2 included even if not needed for tinycore! Basically tinycore is like CoicePup, so yeh, it could be done!
But I actually believe that Quircky with a proper kernel is perfectly fine! It just needs few (several) tweaks in userland. The #1 is sound and #2 power management. Given that X and wifi are ok, having these subsystems working you have a fine XOpup!
Then we can see if init and shutdown can be tweaked to overcome the shutdown delay.
I think, that a hybrid might generate more problems than it solves and might be a nightmare to maintain.

Anyway, did you have the chance to try any woof/puppy, quirky with an XO kernel? Do that if you didn't yet. Then you are going to fly through

[mavrothal]

You have the option to use an entire partition as your pupsave - though I have not used it.... perhaps that portion could be hacked a bit to only use a folder on a partition... (and init too I would assume) From what script does that shutdown dialog originate anyways?

Form what I've tried of Puppy, it will save to an entire partition if it is ext2-formatted. And if you use pmedia={insert a hd parameter here} it will save to it instantly, not all at shutdown (in succeeding shutdowns).

So I tried to use the entire usb stick as a save file of the XOpup-quirky and defined pmedia=sda1. However save times remain VERY long.

I think that as long as puppy running into RAM it still has to save at the end whatever is there and does not appear to instantly save the changes.
Do I miss something?

Here is my pupstate file in case you spot something

Code: Select all

PUPMODE=7
PDEV1='sda1'
DEV1FS='ext3'
PUPSFS='sda1,ext3,/quirky-006.sfs'
PUPSAVE='sda1,ext3,/'
PMEDIA='sda1'
#v3.97: kernel with libata pata has both sata and pata drives in ATADRIVES...
ATADRIVES=''
#these directories are unionfs layers in /initrd...
SAVE_LAYER='/pup_ro1'
PUP_LAYER='/pup_ro2'
#The partition that has the quirkysave file is mounted here...
PUP_HOME='/pup_ro1'
#(in /initrd) ...note, /mnt/home is a link to it.
#this file has extra kernel drivers and firmware...
ZDRV=''
#complete set of modules in the initrd (moved to main f.s.)...
ZDRVINIT='no'
PSWAPFILE=''
PSAVEMARK=''
FASTPARTS=''

Does anybody else uses Puppy running in RAM in a really old machine (P2/P3) and saving to USB sticks? How are the save times?

[Volhout]

On a PII-300 with 128M RAM it takes minutes to save to flash disk. Puppy 412.

[amigo]

As I said before, running from RAM is not really appropriate for the XO and neither is using a save file. The device will work much better when run as a regular installation with normal saving of files as-you-go and not wasting time loading the intrd into RAM. Instead, save that time during bootup and use other techniques to optimize the startup-time for applications, such as using compressed binaries, pre-linking and (maybe) readahead. What all this means is that it will take a couple of seconds for applications to start the first time they are run -something which people are used to anyway. But, boot-up times and shutdown times will be reduced to more normal speeds. getting rid of the initrd will simplify lots of other things related to this hardware also, as normal init scripts are easy enough to optimize/customize for specific hardware.
Rethink!

[mavrothal]

As I said before, running from RAM is not really appropriate for the XO and neither is using a save file. The device will work much better when run as a regular installation with normal saving of files as-you-go and not wasting time loading the intrd into RAM. Instead, save that time during bootup and use other techniques to optimize the startup-time for applications, such as using compressed binaries, pre-linking and (maybe) readahead. What all this means is that it will take a couple of seconds for applications to start the first time they are run -something which people are used to anyway. But, boot-up times and shutdown times will be reduced to more normal speeds. getting rid of the initrd will simplify lots of other things related to this hardware also, as normal init scripts are easy enough to optimize/customize for specific hardware.
Rethink!

I have tried "full install" of puppy on the XO-1 and performance wise is disappointing. At least is not any better than other distros, albeit not optimized. Running in RAM, also not optimized, is a bit better than other distros.
A recent attempt of a Debian-based build boots really fast on the XO, but I think this is not the issue.

Quite often you find yourself waiting on the XO not just for applications to launch but throughout their use. Hopefully XOpup will do better in overall performance during use. However, any gain would be unfortunately negated by save times in the range of "minutes".
I hope that things should improve if I "convince" puppy to run in pupmode=13. I've seen some post in the forum and hopefully I'll try them later.

Edit pupmode 13 is equally slow

[Volhout]

In my work we are running Linux on MIPS32 CPU's (400-1000 drystones), and we have seen that the USB host controller driver had to be optimized for this CPU to get (even at USB1.1) sufficient throughput. Maybe similar work has already been done somewhere for x86 CPU's. It could very well be that the speed problem with flash disk resides in the inefficient USB driver.

[HairyWill]

Next time I have a spare £200 ish I was considering buying an XO to use mounted on the handlebars of my bike.

The idea would be to put it into ebook configuration, connect it to a gps and mobile phone and run tangogps on it to view openstreetmap maps as I cycle around. If I find features on the map that need editing I would then be able login to openstreetmap and do the edits live in the field.

Main features of the XO that I see as important to this are:
vibration resistance
reflective screen that works in bright sunlight
water resistance (I would not expect to use it in the rain)
good battery life (I could try using my bike as a charger)

I have never actually seen an XO so I would be grateful if someone could tell me whether the screen will work acceptably like this and also how tough it really feels.

If there is anyone on this thread with an XO that lives in the south of england maybe we could meet up sometime so that I could test the software configuration.

It does surprise me that the reflective screen technology has not made its way into more mainstream netbooks.

[ttuuxxx]

Next time I have a spare £200 ish I was considering buying an XO to use mounted on the handlebars of my bike.

The idea would be to put it into ebook configuration, connect it to a gps and mobile phone and run tangogps on it to view openstreetmap maps as I cycle around. If I find features on the map that need editing I would then be able login to openstreetmap and do the edits live in the field.

Main features of the XO that I see as important to this are:
vibration resistant
reflective screen that works in bright sunlight
water resistance (I would not expect to use it in the rain)
good battery life (I could try using my bike as a charger)

I have never actually seen an XO so I would be grateful if someone could tell me whether the screen will work acceptable like this and also how tough it really feels.

If there is anyone one this thread with an XO that lives in the south of england maybe we could meet up sometime so that I could test the software configuration.

It does surprise me that the reflective screen technology has not made its way into more mainstream netbooks.

The plastic is thicker and more solid feeling, I think it would be perfect for that job, when I took one apart it didn't look delicate at all, more rugged plastic, kind of like the Commodore 64 internals,
ttuuxxx

[raffy]

So I tried to use the entire usb stick as a save file of the XOpup-quirky and defined pmedia=sda1. However save times remain VERY long.

I think that as long as puppy running into RAM it still has to save at the end whatever is there and does not appear to instantly save the changes.
Do I miss something?

If I remember correctly, pmedia needs something like "idehd" or if only USB interface is detected, "usbhd". pupmode will be set accordingly (ie, if the underlying scripts have not been revised lately).

[mavrothal]

If I remember correctly, pmedia needs something like "idehd" or if only USB interface is detected, "usbhd". pupmode will be set accordingly (ie, if the underlying scripts have not been revised lately).

No luck either
I think that this needs some script hacking. Or maybe is the USB driver as Volout suggested. I'm getting around 11MB/sec though so must be more to it.

Anyway I think that the problem with the missing icons in quircky-XO is actually a problem of the xserver 1.7.4 and the Geode driver. The same thing and with the same symptoms happen with the latest Debian squeeze update. Desktop (GTK-based) Icons disappear but visible when you drag them around. Holding back Xorg update and updating everything else works fine in Squeeze at least. Quirky006 is build with the 8/1/2010 version of the server. So unless an XOpup is build we'll wait for quirky-007 or 8...

[eowens2]

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to configure the network with the Internet Connection Wizard?

I have placed the folder "firmware" (that Mavrothal provided from the F11 xo-1) into /lib in quirky-004.sfs (=>/lib/firmware), but getting through the wireless setup is a problem.

When I do a scan of available networks, the Wizard "sees" the wireless network without difficulty. But when I do the Auto DHCP, both dhcprd and IVp4LL time out and I get the message "unable to connect to a wireless network".

lsmod shows that usb8xxx, usbcore, libertas and lib80211 modules are all present.

The hardware is working OK...I can boot the XO into Sugar or Ubuntu and access the wireless network and internet without any problem.

Any tips?

For the time being I have given up trying to get Puppy 4.12 up and going, and begun working on Quirky-004. I was really excited to see the Bulldog on a Skateboard, even without desktop icons!

When ttuuxxx (and others) get the rough edges sanded off of Quirky, there are going to be some really pleased XO-1 users out there!

Keep up the good work, guys!

(Edit) I should mention that the XO uses the Marvell 8388 wireless chipset which uses the usb8xxx driver, which puppy has and I was using.