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[richf]

That's another bug related to os767...
try the usb method instead of the internal NAND for the firmware update. It works fine.

Yup, I was just about to report that my third attempt, this time with USB, worked fine.

Now to try the Ubuntu install again...

- Rich

[richf]

Yup, I was just about to report that my third attempt, this time with USB, worked fine.

Now to try the Ubuntu install again...

Yay!  It worked with the q2e39 firmware!

I'm now booted into Ubuntu off of the SD card and performing the post-install updates.

Thanks everyone who helped.

To recap, this was with a Patriot 16 GB Class 6 SDHC card.  Which I got from newegg for $30:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820220254

[Eddie Owens]

richf,

I just now saw your post from 5 April, inquiring about my PNY 8GB class 6 SD card, with which I was unable achieve a boot of Ubuntu...well, I never WAS successful in getting it to boot Ubuntu!  I have been successful with larger cards and smaller cards from several other manufacturers.  I have also been successful booting Ubuntu on a USB stick (a Kingston if I remember correctly).

I just chalked it up to the "XO's not playing well with SD cards".

Interestingly, I used that very same 8GB PNY card in my Eee PC 1000 HA, and it boots the "Easy Peasy" version of Ubuntu 8.10 with NO PROBLEM WHATSOEVER!  So go figure!

I am delighted to hear that you have been able to get your 16 GB Patriot SD card booting Ubuntu.  Enjoy!

[richf]

Trying to upgrade gives:

Code:
ok flash n:\boot\q2e39.rom
Reading n:\boot\q2e39.rom
Got firmware versionL CL1   Q2E39  Q2E
Checking integrity ...
Firmware image has bad internal CRC
ok

This is from two separate attempts.

That's another bug related to os767...
try the usb method instead of the internal NAND for the firmware update. It works fine.

Should this be noted on one of the wiki pages discussing updating your firmware?

- Rich

[richf]

FIREFOX BOOKMARKS NOT SAVED

I now have Ubuntu 8.10 installed, and my packages updated.

Firefox is version 3.0.8.  When I save bookmarks, I do see them in firefox as long as I'm running firefox.  But once I quit and restart, they're not there.  No new bookmarks, and no new bookmark folders.

Looking in ~/.mozilla/firefox/<profile-name>/ , I can see that some files are getting updated.  And other user related state in firefox (e.g. preferences, history, cookies) is getting preserved.  Just not the bookmarks.  (Or at least that's all I've noticed so far.)  So I don't think it's a permissions or ownership issue.  And indeed the bookmarks.html file and the single bookmarks-<date>.json file in the bookmarkbackups folder are not getting updated.

Oh yeah, I also have the adblock and flashblock extensions installed, in case that matters.

- Rich

[teapot]

Looking in ~/.mozilla/firefox/<profile-name>/ , I can see that some files are getting updated.  And other user related state in firefox (e.g. preferences, history, cookies) is getting preserved.  Just not the bookmarks.  (Or at least that's all I've noticed so far.)  So I don't think it's a permissions or ownership issue. 

If you wanted to check if the problem is related to ownership and permissions, wouldn't it be easier to just READ the ownership and permissions of those files?

Please note that modern Firefox releases keep bookmarks in places.sqlite, not bookmarks.html

[richf]

Please note that modern Firefox releases keep bookmarks in places.sqlite, not bookmarks.html

Ok, that's good to know.  I didn't realize that.

Anyway, I see that places.sqlite and places.sqlite-journal are both olpc:olpc and 644.  And I can see their modification times changing if I add a bookmark.  Yet when I quit and restart firefox, the bookmark is gone.

Perhaps I should try peeking inside the db file to see what's going on.

[richf]

Anyway, I see that places.sqlite and places.sqlite-journal are both olpc:olpc and 644.  And I can see their modification times changing if I add a bookmark.  Yet when I quit and restart firefox, the bookmark is gone.

I suspect at this point this is probably more of an ubuntu or firefox issue than an XO issue, so this may really not be the best forum.  But I'll post what else I've tried before moving this elsewhere.

The two threads I found at ubuntuforums.org that seem somewhat relevant are:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=785947
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=319646

But nothing there worked for me.  All of the files in ~/.mozilla are owned by olpc:olpc, everything is readable by the olpc user, there's only one file (an install.rdf file for an extension) that's not writeable by the olpc user, and all dirs are executable.  Although there is a .parentlock file left behind after quitting firefox, deleting it doesn't help.

I did try the suggestion of setting browser.bookmarks.autoExportHTML to true (via about:config).  If I add a bookmark, when I quit, bookmarks.html *does* get updated with the new bookmark.  When I restart firefox, however, the bookmark is still not there.  Which I guess makes sense, since this is just an html export for convenience.  Also, the next time I quit firefox, the bookmarks (now lacking my previous addition) get rexported, causing the bookmark to disappear from bookmarks.html after the second quit.

[mavrothal]

Here is a little problem that I have. Most audio applications look for input in /dev/dsp. In XO-ubuntu these are in /dev/.static/dev/dsp. If the application has a user defined option, is simple. If it has not you can make a soft link and get around it. However, the link will not stick through reboots. Adding a simple startup script also did not work since linking in /dev requires sudo authority.
Any ideas for a "sticky" link or for a properly formatted script?

[richf]

I suspect at this point this is probably more of an ubuntu or firefox issue than an XO issue, so this may really not be the best forum.  But I'll post what else I've tried before moving this elsewhere.

Just for completeness of anyone reading this, I'd like to note that I solved my problem about firefox3 not saving bookmarks across restarts by moving the bookmarkbackups dir within my profile out of the way and having it get automatically recreated.  Further details can be found here:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/firefox-3.0/+bug/225257/comments/28

[BruceM]

Has anyone thought about getting the Pen Tablet operational under Ubuntu? That would be very cool and make drawing programs more useful without a mouse.

-- Bruce

[teapot]

I have started work on 9.04 (Jaunty) port. It isn't significantly different from 8.10, so I expect the port to be relatively straightforward, however at this point I want to:

1. Include kernel that is not tied to OLPC binaries.

2. Get some acknowledgment from Canonical about it being/not being Ubuntu.

I have no intention to create it as a new Linux distribution, and the whole point of this port is to adapt Ubuntu so it can be installed and used on XO, and benefit from Ubuntu packages/updates/development. For the last three months I was unable to do any serious development work on it because of my massive workload (I do embedded systems development), yet Ubuntu updates are keeping laptops up to date.

[mavrothal]

1. Include kernel that is not tied to OLPC binaries.

Does this mean that OLPC kernel patches must be submitted to kernel.org and accepted or that patches/components will be added so the XO works with the standard kernel?

2. Get some acknowledgment from Canonical about it being/not being Ubuntu.

So, you asked them?...

For the last three months I was unable to do any serious development work on it because of my massive workload

And is this back to "normal" now?

(I'm just trying to figure the time-frame here...)

[JoeMac]

Teapot,

Thanks for the good news regarding Jaunty.  You have done a stellar job of providing us with a stable, functional, updatable work environment for our XO's.  The natural question is what can we do to help?  Your capabilities with Linux go so far beyond where I'm at that the natural answer might well be not much, but there must be something we can do to lighten the load.  Is there any way we could help with the more mundane administrative stuff regarding the "is Ubuntu - is not Ubuntu"?

joemac

[teapot]

1. Include kernel that is not tied to OLPC binaries.

Does this mean that OLPC kernel patches must be submitted to kernel.org and accepted or that patches/components will be added so the XO works with the standard kernel?

It doesn't have to be in mainstream source, but it's much better to have it maintained as a part of "official" kernel tree rather than a set of patches. Since most of the kernel code originated from Red Hat/OLPC developers, it's up to them to choose how they will maintain it, and up to Linus/kernel maintainers to choose what will be in the mainstream kernel. I can participate in that, but I am not the right person to maintain that code.

On the other hand, maintenance of Debian/Ubuntu package of the kernel with patches, plus any kernel-related scripts in ramdisk, is something I can do (or take from/adapt/participate in developent/combine with/... DebXO).

2. Get some acknowledgment from Canonical about it being/not being Ubuntu.

So, you asked them?...

Will ask them before the release, though if there are any Ubuntu developers here who know about this work, I will appreciate if they will point out whom in particular am I supposed to ask.

For the last three months I was unable to do any serious development work on it because of my massive workload

And is this back to "normal" now?

"Normal" means that my work now leaves me with enough time/capacity to work on other projects to actually do development.

(I'm just trying to figure the time-frame here...)

I expect that just like with Intrepid, there will be few weeks between Ubuntu release and me producing a usable tarball. It's not really a large amount of work to adapt things to Jaunty, however I want to convert things into being organized and packaged "the right way", as opposed to Hardy and Intrepid where changes and "foreign" binaries were mostly outside of the packaging system. I also want to improve my installer script (still unreleased because of its insufficient reliability) and hopefully include it into Jaunty release.