Puppylinux for the OLPC laptops: XOpup

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mavrothal
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#81 Post by mavrothal »

01micko wrote::
Well the spup experiment then!
Yep ... That would be interesting :D

BTW I was looking through packages to cut from XOpup. Mostly apps that are highly unlikely to be used because of the hardware limitations.

First in my list is sane/xsane. The XO does not look like a machine to hook to a scanner. And that's a good 3MB compressed
Then, is the 9(!) cd/dvd apps and infrastructure. Again I do not see going around with the XO and a portable CD/DVD. About 0.5MB
Of cource the infamous 4 calculators could be cut down to by one
I also belive the gtkam/libgphoto can go. The XO is an unlikely machine to manipulate your camera and store the (5-12 megapixel) photos. That's 2+MB
Gnumeric can also go, but mtcell is really rudimentary as a spreadsheet app. I would rather have nothing instead. And that's 5+MB.
Finally is CUPS/printing. I personally like trees :D but I can see people wanting out of the box printing. So I'm not sure about this but that's another 3+MB...

These could be provided as one or multiple SFS/pets within the distributed tarball and people can decide what to use and when.

Frankly I do not see the XO as a "production machine". Is OK on the road and to work on something while at it, but hardly your (western adult) only machine.
The additional benefit of the trimming is that you release resources that may be used to run more kids/young-adults-oriented apps, in accordance with the XO target demographics. If not you just have a more responsive machine :wink: :D

Opinions?...

Edit: with these changes and the insertion of the 5MB wxcam+dependencies package so the XO-1[.5] camera works, the sfs is only 93MB. Not bad :D More important, it works :lol:
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rrolsbe
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Booting XO-1.0 from an externally USB attached SATA SSD

#82 Post by rrolsbe »

This question applies to booting from a USB attached device having an NTFS partition. I can attach a USB flash drive with a (FAT16/32 Ext2/3) file system (with the proper Puppy files) and boot into either my ASUS netbook or OLPC XO-1. If I put the files required to boot Puppy onto a USB attached SSD having an NTFS partition (set up to boot into Windows XP when attached directly to the Netbook SATA connector), is it possible to boot Puppy 5.11 on a standard Netbook and/or the OLPC XO-1 platforms?

Until the last few days, this thread had been deafening quiet for a long time! Maybe there is only a handful of people interested in running XOPup on their XO-1.0/1.5 hardware?

Regards, Ron

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Re: Booting XO-1.0 from an externally USB attached SATA SSD

#83 Post by 01micko »

rrolsbe wrote:
Until the last few days, this thread had been deafening quiet for a long time! Maybe there is only a handful of people interested in running XOPup on their XO-1.0/1.5 hardware?

Regards, Ron
Sorry Ron, can't help with the ntfs issue but your comment is sure on the mark! How can we fix that? :roll:
I can create a website I suppose, put in some meta tags that attract some interest perhaps. What do people think of that idea?

Cheers
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mavrothal
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#84 Post by mavrothal »

Ron,
you can not use the same files to boot a “regular’ laptop and the XO-1/1.5 and this is because the XOs require both a special kernel and a special “BIOS
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rrolsbe
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More clarification to my last post

#85 Post by rrolsbe »

mavrothal

Thanks for the reply. My previous post wasn't as clear as it should have been. I do NOT want to run Windows on the XO. What I what to do is use my new cheap 32GB SSD as I would a normal USB flash stick (It just happens to also contain the files to boot into Windows XP when directly attached to the internal SATA connection). I know one set of Puppy boot files is needed on a USB stick to boot my ASUS netbook and another different set to boot my XO. After booting into either machine, I can attach my SSD, via a USB adapter, then mount the NTFS partition and read/write the files. I suspect it is the initrd.gz file on the netbook side and the initrd.img file on the XO side that doesn't have the wherewithal to communicate with the NTFS partition during boot-up. Guess I could reinstall Windows XP on a FAT32 partition, on my 32G SATA SSD, but that has issues on the Windows side.

What I like about using this SSD as a stick is the following.

1. Reads/writes way faster than a normal USB stick
2. Performs garbage collection
3. I can run a program that will issue the ATA Trim commands to erase the unused NAND read blocks for previously deleted files. This can be done booted into Windows with the OCZ Wiper.exe program for a NTFS partition; likewise, can be done using Linux and the wiper.sh/hdparm for ext2/3 partitions (I do this currently on my other SSD using Puppy to statically trim the UNMOUNTED ext2 partition containing Ubuntu and my Puppy boot files).
4. Is cheaper than a 32G class 10 SDHC card and the faster USB sticks

NOTE: 2 and 3 above are not available on any low cost USB/SDHC sticks.

Regards, Ron

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#86 Post by mavrothal »

So let me understand you want to boot Windows, Puppy and XOpup from the same NTFS formatted SSD?. If yes you need to install grub on your SSD. However, I believe that the XO OFW does not support NTFS booting, so is a no-go for the XO.

Which one (brand/model) is the SSD you said? :wink:
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rrolsbe
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Close to what I want to do

#87 Post by rrolsbe »

mavrothal

My plan was to take the SSD out of the Netbook and attach it to a USB port when I want to boot into Puppy on the XO (think of it just as if it were a Big/Fast USB stick). Oh, I remember now that the OFW doesn't support NTFS at boot time. The SSD is a low-end SATA OCZ 32G Onyx I purchased for $40 after rebate. They had the 30G Vertex for the same price after rebate a week later. The 30G Vertex is two steps above the Onyx performance wise but connected to a SATA I/USB 2.0 bus probably not much difference performance wise over the Onyx. Of course, other than sacrificing 2G the Vertex is the better deal.

Thanks for the reply.
Regards, Ron
mavrothal wrote:So let me understand you want to boot Windows, Puppy and XOpup from the same NTFS formatted SSD?. If yes you need to install grub on your SSD. However, I believe that the XO OFW does not support NTFS booting, so is a no-go for the XO.

Which one (brand/model) is the SSD you said? :wink:

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XOpup-2.v1

#88 Post by mavrothal »

So I did go ahead and made a new XOpup, the first in the XOpup-2.0 road that has a number of apps and infrastructure provided as pets outside the main SFS that is now only 92MB.
Adding the pets back you come pretty close to the original XOpup-10 but with camera support via xwCam and the new 2.6.35 kernel.

See the build announcement and the change log for more
Then get XOpup-2.v1.tar.gz (md5sum: 8818d361df984041431a2f20977ab97e) for a ride.
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mavrothal
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#89 Post by mavrothal »

There is a bug in the new kernels that prevents the XO to suspend on user inactivity.
Install this pet to fix it (need to reboot)
Attachments
powerdfix-1.pet
idle suspend fix for XOpup-2.v1
(387 Bytes) Downloaded 441 times
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mavrothal
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XOpup-2.v2

#90 Post by mavrothal »

v2 of XOpup-2 is out.
This one has better power management, USB-to-VGA adapter support and other fixes and cleanup.
See the change log and build announcement for more.
Get it HERE (md5sum: f7fba544d7a8b4763f29b4ae2c710aba)

BTW in contrast to 2.v1, XOpup-2.v2 also works with the previous kernels. Eg you can only replace the lupu-511.sfs file in your XO-1.0 setup.
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XOpup-2.v3

#91 Post by mavrothal »

Just before the Holidays (you all have a happy one :D ) another development release of XOpup-2, XOpup-2.v3 (md5sum: 8faa52841fd596d1b266e2c8bd494863).
This one addresses an issue in XO-1 and ext2/3 formatted media (backwards compatibility of ext4 is not so good in puppy). Improves power management and networking and has some more cleanup and moving things to "extra_pets". See the change log for more.

Assuming that this gets some testing ( :roll: ) the next one could be the final.
The only thing I would like to improve is to get power management to work seamlessly in "aggressive" conditions, eg powering off CPU after 10-15 secs of inactivity. This should seriously improve battery life in normal use. Is almost there for the XO-1.5 but not the XO-1 yet.

As always any other input/suggestion is appreciated.
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XOpup-2 Release Candidate

#92 Post by mavrothal »

Image

The new version of XOpup-2 (xopup-200) has reached Release Candidate status :D

Download: XOpup-2.RC.tar.gz
md5sum: 2ea3773984a0dafd1736e13f0666e52d

The main changes compared to XOpup-1.0 are:
  • Moved to "xopup" SFS names instead of "lupu"
    Comparable support for XO-1 and XO-1.5
    New olpc-2.6.35-based kernels for both the XO-1 and the XO-1.5 (a new 2.6.31 kernel for the XO-1 is also provided)
    New XO-1.5 video driver
    XO camera support through the wxCam application
    Moving (not very much used) apps and functions out of the main SFS file to make room for "kids" apps. The main SFS is now only 92MB.
    Removed apps are now provided as pets in the "extra_pets" folder included in the download.
    External monitor/projector, firewall and bluetooth support
    Improvements in savefile handling
    Better power management
    Updated XO-version-specific Quickpet and PPM repo data
    New background (to distinguish the builds :-) )
See the build announcement and change log for more info.
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#93 Post by 01micko »

Downloading now, more or less for a sanity check :wink:

Cheers :D
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rrolsbe
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Thanks, I will give the RC a go

#94 Post by rrolsbe »

Since very few people participate in this thread, I hope lots of people are at least downloading the Puppy for XO iso and trying it out. I have been recently browsing using a WPA2 wireless encrypted connection on my XO-1.0. Maybe it's just me but it seems a lot slower than connecting directly via a wired connection? I have been reading about the new XO-1.75 OLPC's based on an ARM processor and discussions about porting Puppy to the ARM processor camp. Since Redhat has ported some portion of Linux code base to the ARM based XO, how hard would it be to port Puppy to the new ARM based XO-1.75? Since it appears the the mother board in the new XO-1.75 is the only big change, maybe they will sell the motherboard using the ARM to allow upgrading existing XO-1.0/1.5 owners (YEAH RIGHT!!!!).

Keep up the great work and I thank the both of you for your efforts.

Regards, Ron

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mavrothal
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#95 Post by mavrothal »

Hi Ron,
Unfortunately, my hosting server does not provide download stats so I do not really know if 10s, 100s or 1000s have downloaded XOpup :cry: .
Forum wisdom says that about 1% provides feed back so we have to hope for that in this case too...

Regarding ARM, Debian/Ubuntu already run on it and the Fedora12/13 port is almost finished. So (last famous words...) should not be too difficult to get puppy going as soon as the XO-spesific kernels are out.

The real problem is, if the machines will be available outside deployments. At least with the XO-1.5 that is only available to deployments and developers, I have the sense that I'm the only one that uses puppy on this hardware... :roll:
So unless XO-1.75s become freely available, I hardly see the need/opportunity for puppy (or any other distro) on this hardware.
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xopup-200 update-1

#96 Post by mavrothal »

This a small xopup-200 update with a couple of additions and fixes.
xopup_200_update-1.pet has zigbert's resizable PPM UI and fixes the PPM-configure layout (01micko). Also includes an addition to quickpet to directly download the xopup_devx_200.sfs (01micko). Finally fixes the time-change-after-reboots issue on the XO-1 (pls report on this one).
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LiveCD

#97 Post by l2ulinux »

Can you build a livecd to try with other systems. Please Help

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mavrothal
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Re: LiveCD

#98 Post by mavrothal »

l2ulinux wrote:Can you build a livecd to try with other systems. Please Help
XOpup runs olny on the OLPC XO-1 and XO-1.5 hardware (that do not have a CD drive).

For other hardware just use one of the official puppies and/or pupplets
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Ted Dog
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Any help on using the OpenMESH idea in other hardware

#99 Post by Ted Dog »

I would love to get my hands on one of those to play with, but I really would like to use puppylinux to setup a network like the normal OLPC hardware does.

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Re: Any help on using the OpenMESH idea in other hardware

#100 Post by mavrothal »

Ted Dog wrote:I would love to get my hands on one of those to play with
For an XO-1, try eBay or the Contributors program
Ted Dog wrote: but I really would like to use puppylinux to setup a network like the normal OLPC hardware does.
??? :?
You mean "mesh" or "ad-hoc", other?
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