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[ironwolfe]

Teapot or others,

I am trying to compile a USB rt73 wifi module, but it is saying that the /lib/modules/2.6.25..../build is not available.  I have gone into the Makefile, and it has a reference to "KERNEL_SOURCES=/lib/modules/$(shell uname -r)/build"

I go to /lib/modules/2.6.25.../build and it seems to be there...

I think the problem is that I don't have the kernel headers like a usual ubuntu install, but I am not sure. 

any ideas?

EDIT:  I tried installing the linux-headers-2.6.25-2-386 but no luck.  I think I need the headers for 2.6.25-20080925.1.olpc.f10b654367d7065/ which is obviously not in the repos.  I tried to check your install files, but got a 404.

I will keep trying...

[Ray Radlein]

I have a recently-purchased (green!) 320G portable USB hard drive (a Seagate FreeAgent GO, I think it is called), and what I think I would like to do with it is install Ubuntu on it in such a way that I can plug it in to one of the XO's USB ports, and use it to boot into a nice, full Ubuntu install, with swap enabled and everything.

My thinking is to boot my dual-boot desktop from XP into Fedora 8, and use gparted (or qparted or whatever) to partition the USB drive into a /boot partition, a 200G vfat partition, a 100G ext2 or ext3 / partition, and a swap partition or two, before installing Ubuntu on to it.

Is there any chance that it will work, and I will be able to disconnect the drive, carry it over to the XO, plug it in, and boot the XO into Ubuntu (all the while leaving the XO itself untouched and still bootable into Sugar/Fedora/767 in the absence of the drive)?

If I should use teapot's files (which I have already downloaded, FWIW) instead of a regular Ubuntu install on the hard drive, what sort of changes might I need to make to the files and the install process?

And is there any reason to believe that the system performance with swap partitions mounted on a large USB hard drive would be superior to having everything crammed together onto an 8G class 6 SD card? 'Cause I also have an unused 8G class 6 SD card lying around, if that would be a better option (but I do kind of like the idea of having more than enough storage space to install any and all packages that strike my fancy).

[teapot]

Is there any chance that it will work, and I will be able to disconnect the drive, carry it over to the XO, plug it in, and boot the XO into Ubuntu (all the while leaving the XO itself untouched and still bootable into Sugar/Fedora/767 in the absence of the drive)?

If I should use teapot's files (which I have already downloaded, FWIW) instead of a regular Ubuntu install on the hard drive, what sort of changes might I need to make to the files and the install process?

You will need kernel and ramdisk files from OLPC, you will have to install sysvinit instead of upstart, and you will have to update X configuration to work with XO hardware. Of course, XO-specific things such as screen rotation, power management, handling of screen resolution, etc. will be still missing.

My tarball should work if installed on the ext3 partition on a USB drive, you will need to update boot/olpc.fth and etc/fstab files to use /dev/sda1 instead of /dev/mmcblk0p1 , and boot from disk: instead of sd:, however the rest should work in the unchanged configuration. "Aggressive" power management mode may or may not work -- I should test this.

And is there any reason to believe that the system performance with swap partitions mounted on a large USB hard drive would be superior to having everything crammed together onto an 8G class 6 SD card? 'Cause I also have an unused 8G class 6 SD card lying around, if that would be a better option (but I do kind of like the idea of having more than enough storage space to install any and all packages that strike my fancy).

Swap on SD is something that should be avoided unless absolutely necessary, it's just with XO it is often the only option to make large applications run reliably. Swap to hard drive is much faster, and it does not affect card's lifetime, however you have to take into account that a drive with swap can't be disconnected while swap is active -- it's tied to XO until you will shut it down or disable swap, so it's much harder to carry around in such configuration.

[cormorant]

I'll add my thanks to Teapot for incredible work getting this going.
And to the others in this thread who have contributed to the general knowledge.
My XO has been languishing, but will now have new life.

I will 'out' myself as a newbie by making a suggestion that I hope can be added to the original set of installation instructions.  I think you will find lots of interest by XO and Linux newbies who will go places they never would have gone otherwise.  That's great.
Some of them won't know that you need to ensure that you have a developer key installed on the machine for this to work.  I knew that a year ago when I got the machine, but had forgotten.  Figured it out eventually, after reading, and surmising from all 15 pages of posts to this thread.  I learned a lot that I will use, but kind of kicked myself when I figured it out.

Maybe a single line like "Ensure that you have a developers key installed on the machine." Somewhere in the first couple of lines.  Perhaps even a link to the wiki entry where one learns how to do that.

I'm up an running, and excited about my XO in a way I haven't been for a long time.
Thanks again, teapot!

[electropriest]

Ray - the one thing you will notice, using an external HD, is that you're not going to experience any sort of incredible battery life. In the early days of the 1st G1G1, I used 2 separate USB hard drives... but the power to spin the disc makes for a short battery life. For any interested in using 2 HDs (i.e. one for system, one for media,) you will also find that the XO doesn't supply enough USB power, and your discs will fail. Such a USB load required a powered hub... the same was true for running one USB drive with a usbvga adapter.

So in the end - if you want a portable device, SD really is your best bet. If you're ok with a machine that looks like Medusa, and requires a few AC connections, then go nuts.

[Kerry]

I am getting optimstic.  I have enough of intrepid installed to boot and get around and try things out.  Thanks teapot, it is just what the doctor ordered.   HOWEVER, when I get to the sudo aptitude update part of the install, I get the following:

E: Couldn't make mmap of 25165824 bytes - mmap (22 Invalid argument)
W: Unable to munmap
E: The package lists or status file could not be parsed or opened.
E: Couldn't rebuild package cache
E: Couldn't make mmap of 25165824 bytes - mmap (22 Invalid argument)
W: Unable to munmap
E: The package lists or status file could not be parsed or opened.

E: Couldn't make mmap of 25165824 bytes - mmap (22 Invalid argument)
W: Unable to munmap
E: The package lists or status file could not be parsed or opened.

what does this mean? and where should I be going to learn what messages like this mean?
     thanks again for the help,  Kerry

[teapot]

Teapot or others,

I am trying to compile a USB rt73 wifi module, but it is saying that the /lib/modules/2.6.25..../build is not available.  I have gone into the Makefile, and it has a reference to "KERNEL_SOURCES=/lib/modules/$(shell uname -r)/build"

I go to /lib/modules/2.6.25.../build and it seems to be there...

I think the problem is that I don't have the kernel headers like a usual ubuntu install, but I am not sure. 

any ideas?

EDIT:  I tried installing the linux-headers-2.6.25-2-386 but no luck.  I think I need the headers for 2.6.25-20080925.1.olpc.f10b654367d7065/ which is obviously not in the repos.  I tried to check your install files, but got a 404.

I will keep trying...

I am working on the packaged kernel with XO patches that should be able to replace the original OLPC kernel/ramdisk set. I didn't do it before the release because I first had to make sure that everything works on known-stable base used in 8.2.0.

[teapot]

I am getting optimstic.  I have enough of intrepid installed to boot and get around and try things out.  Thanks teapot, it is just what the doctor ordered.   HOWEVER, when I get to the sudo aptitude update part of the install, I get the following:

E: Couldn't make mmap of 25165824 bytes - mmap (22 Invalid argument)
W: Unable to munmap
E: The package lists or status file could not be parsed or opened.
E: Couldn't rebuild package cache
E: Couldn't make mmap of 25165824 bytes - mmap (22 Invalid argument)
W: Unable to munmap
E: The package lists or status file could not be parsed or opened.

E: Couldn't make mmap of 25165824 bytes - mmap (22 Invalid argument)
W: Unable to munmap
E: The package lists or status file could not be parsed or opened.

what does this mean? and where should I be going to learn what messages like this mean?
     thanks again for the help,  Kerry

Can you try to install it on another card? Those errors seem to be just random filesystem access failures, so most likely there is some data corruption.

[Ray Radlein]

My tarball should work if installed on the ext3 partition on a USB drive, you will need to update boot/olpc.fth and etc/fstab files to use /dev/sda1 instead of /dev/mmcblk0p1 , and boot from disk: instead of sd:, however the rest should work in the unchanged configuration. "Aggressive" power management mode may or may not work -- I should test this.

Just to be sure: Which ext3 partition? /boot or / ?

[Ray Radlein]

Ray - the one thing you will notice, using an external HD, is that you're not going to experience any sort of incredible battery life. In the early days of the 1st G1G1, I used 2 separate USB hard drives... but the power to spin the disc makes for a short battery life. For any interested in using 2 HDs (i.e. one for system, one for media,) you will also find that the XO doesn't supply enough USB power, and your discs will fail. Such a USB load required a powered hub... the same was true for running one USB drive with a usbvga adapter.

So in the end - if you want a portable device, SD really is your best bet. If you're ok with a machine that looks like Medusa, and requires a few AC connections, then go nuts.

That's a good point. I suppose I should do it twice: once on the hard drive, for the full experience when I'm all plugged in; and once on an SD card, for when I'm untethered.

[teapot]

Just to be sure: Which ext3 partition? /boot or / ?

This configuration does not use separate /boot partition.

[kimtoufectis]

Hello,
Thanks for getting an Ubuntu version up so that I can actually use my XO. I was an og give one get one donor, but I have struggled to use the xo myself. I wanted it for web browsing and text editing (which I do not think is too much to ask). After the T-mobile hotspot freebee expired the web browsing in public was out and I had given up on being able to write on it also after losing several pages of work to various failings by the stripped down Abi-word version on it. In short I was at a point where the beloved machine was unusable to me and I no longer felt as strongly about recommending it to people who asked about it at the local coffee shop. I think it is a wonderful machine with a good goal, but everyone who asks me about it wants one for themselves and it is extremely difficult to use as an adult. I was at a point where I could no longer recommend it in good conscience if they wanted any utility from it themselves and were not merely after one for their child.  I believe that Ubuntu and Openoffice will restore my faith in the g1g1 program's efficacy with adult users as well.

Sorry to hear of your difficulties with AbiWord and Write.  Hope you find Ubuntu Intrepid a good alternative for adult xo use.  My use of the xo is similar to your own, so I can report that there are other avenues you may find worth exploring as well.  The Opera Web browser has long been a workable, adult application available for the xo, and it's got a lot going for it beyond internet web browsing.  It offers e-mail, RSS, and in its current 9.6 incarnations, a set of very usable plug-in "widgets".

One of those widgets, called "Write!", is a text editor I've been using pretty intensively of late.  Though compact, it has just about all the text editing functions of a word processor:  fonts, styles, bullets, numbered lists, sub- and super-scripts.  The only things it lacks from my perspective is a spellcheck and the ability to integrate images.  And Write! runs without any need for connection to the Internet.  I use it for local access to files I'm actively working, periodically backing up or archiving to Google Docs.

[Eddie Owens]

I finally had the time to try and get Ubuntu Intrepid (thanks Teapot!) up and running on my XO, and so I splurged on a PNY class 6 8GB SD card.

In preparation for installing Ubuntu, I upgraded Sugar from 656 to 8.2.0 with q2e18 firmware, and that OS/OFW seemed to be working reasonably well.

I downloaded the Intrepid tar file on my XP desktop machine using bittorrent, and saved it to a VFAT formatted thumb drive which I inserted into my XO.

After becoming root, I placed the 8GB PNY SD card in the XO, erased the MBR and partition table and tried to create a new partition table with sfdisk, which failed, but was able to do so with the fdisk command as described with installation instructions on Ubuntu Hardy (http://www.olpcnews.com/forum/index.php?topic=2240.msg21169#msg21169).

Root file system creation, mounting of the SD, and unpacking of the tar file onto the SD seemed to go OK. The developer key was copied over to the new SD.

However on rebooting I got the error "sdhci: card didn't power up after 1 second", and the xo proceded to boot into sugar.  Adding "rootdelay=1" (or 2 or 5) made no difference in booting.  The SD card however was mounted during the boot process, and one could do read and write operations on it. I checked the card for errors using the badblocks command (http://www.olpcnews.com/forum/index.php?topic=2119.msg21865#msg21865), and there no bad blocks.

This error message however is not new, and it has been known for some time that the "XO does not play well with some SD cards", due to ?

So I googled the error and came up with several hits relating to the XO from the Fedora-Live people.  Several of their group have encountered this error, along with other quirky behaviours, on 4GB, 8GB, and 16GB cards, from different manufacturers (http://n2.nabble.com/XO:-SDHCI:-Card-didn't-power-up-after-1-second-td1379903.html).

The Fedora-Live people turned these findings in as a bug to the XO developers (https://dev.laptop.org/ticket/8987) who have found a "Marvel specific quirk that wasn't enabled", correcting which cures SOME of the problems, and is to be included on OFW q2e23.  But a solution for the other problems they are pushing out to OS 9.1.0.

I am happy to hear that they are making progress in "playing well with SD cards", because I REALLY dislike throwing away money on the larger SD cards hoping to use them on my XO.  At least the problem didn't erase my card!

I did get Intrepid up and running, but on a Kingston 4GB USB drive and then a SanDisk 4GB SD card.

It looks good, Teapot!

[Sheepster]

 Wow!  Thank you for the clear instructions.  I just got my XO last Tuesday (came with 8.2 installed) and have no prior experience with linux - and I have Ubuntu 8.10 up and running! I used a adata 16GB sdhc class 6 (turbo series) memory card and have had no issues with it so far. (Hadn't seen the post where someone had trouble with the adata memory card - rather I had read some other post recommending it for the XO - so I'm glad it worked for me.)   

My pdfs are working much much better with adobe.  I really really wanted the XO to be able to be a good pdf reader and so I'm happy.  

I actually got open office to run (this was somewhat more of a struggle) and figured out how to download the correct JRE and actually have run the open office base program. (Not what I  intended to use the XO for, but I was just curious - the XO could probably handle my dissertation dataset...)  Actually I'll just be happy if the Writer program doesn't keep losing paragraphs as was happening to me in Write/Abiword.

The only thing that hasn't worked so well is that I installed kchmviewer to read chm files and that is extraordinarily slow even after creating a swap file.  I'm not exactly sure why that is (haven't had the chance to test whether it could be related to the size of the file) or whether that can be improved.

I know you can mount the original XO hard drive and see the files.  Can you run some of the original XO programs while in Ubuntu and if so, how?

Thanks again!

A happy newbie

edit: meant to write kchmviewer not reader.

[mavrothal]

So I googled the error and came up with several hits relating to the XO from the Fedora-Live people.  Several of their group have encountered this error, along with other quirky behaviours, on 4GB, 8GB, and 16GB cards, from different manufacturers (http://n2.nabble.com/XO:-SDHCI:-Card-didn't-power-up-after-1-second-td1379903.html).

The Fedora-Live people turned these findings in as a bug to the XO developers (https://dev.laptop.org/ticket/8987) who have found a "Marvel specific quirk that wasn't enabled", correcting which cures SOME of the problems, and is to be included on OFW q2e23.  But a solution for the other problems they are pushing out to OS 9.1.0.

I am happy to hear that they are making progress in "playing well with SD cards", because I REALLY dislike throwing away money on the larger SD cards hoping to use them on my XO.  At least the problem didn't erase my card!

Actually q2e24 "solves" the didn't-power-up problem by attempting another time to read.
q2e24 is part of update 8.2.1 Build-790, which is build 767 with q2e24. If you download either 790 or joyride 2599 (and latter) as an ext3 image for USB sticks http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OS_images_for_USB_disks and try to boot the XO from the USB will update your firmware so you can hopefully use your card (the boot will fail because of a bug-here is a solution if you care http://www.olpcnews.com/forum/index.php?topic=3942.msg26766#msg26766 )

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