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[mavrothal]

Control panel and alsamixer where the first I checked. No problem there. I do not know where was the problem and I do not know if you need both the new kernel/modules and the firmware to reproduce it or only the firmware is enough (though this should be simple to test-I just want to check the new kernel a bit more). In general with the q2e20+ firmwares I had multiple problems in Ubuntu. Usually touchpad recalibration failures (e24, 28, 30) a destroyed SD card (e28) and now this...

Just to let you know that q2e33 corrects the sound problem in Ubuntu and now works as good as the original q2e18. We'll see if any other problem crops up....

On a side note. I was wondering if all these "windows-ready" OFW modifications would make Puppy linux bootable. My initial attempt failed miserable. I guess OFW still needs a proper olpc.fth and maybe EFI/grub (the ones from DebXO didn't work...).
Oh well,... just a thought for linux competent people.

[Rao]

I couldn't keep up with the developments here because I was away for the past 3 months in a third world country!

After coming back to US, I tried to install Intrepid (using Teapot's instructions, see NOT below) on a Transcend 8GB SD.  However, after the dd command I could not create the partition table (sfdisk  error :  "the device is mounted, can't partition" or something to that effect.

However, the following procedure was successful.
First, I unmounted the Trascend SD through the journal and then followed Teapot's instructions without any problems.

I thought I should record my two 2 Cents worth experience  for others who may use Transcend SD.

NOTE:  Mavrothal has pointed out that if I had run the haldaemon command first before inserting the SD card the above problem would not have occurred. 

Rao

[mavrothal]

I couldn't keep up with the developments here because I was away for the past 3 months in a third world country!

Did you have the XO with you? if yes, any related views/stories?

[flummoxed]

I've been trying to figure out which button I'm supposed to hold to get it to boot from SD... I looked at the Cheat Codes page in the wiki, but that doesn't say anything about booting from external media... So which button is it?

Also... holding any buttons didn't seem to be doing anything at all the past couple of times I tried. I'm not getting the picture that shows the SD card anymore, either, it's just always going straight to the boot process.

[guidojack]

I've been trying to figure out which button I'm supposed to hold to get it to boot from SD... I looked at the Cheat Codes page in the wiki, but that doesn't say anything about booting from external media... So which button is it?

Also... holding any buttons didn't seem to be doing anything at all the past couple of times I tried. I'm not getting the picture that shows the SD card anymore, either, it's just always going straight to the boot process.

Did you get your developer key? From elsewhere in this forum:

--- Update: before installing Ubuntu, make sure that you have: ---
1. Developer key: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Activation_and_Developer_Keys
2. OS upgraded at least to the version 8.2.0: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Release_notes/8.2.0
3. Firmware upgraded at least to the version q2e18 (should come with OS 8.2.0): http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_Firmware_q2e18

[flummoxed]

Yes, I have all of those things. Now which button do I push?

[mavrothal]

Yes, I have all of those things. Now which button do I push?

If the installation is done correctly you should push nothing to boot  to Ubuntu. If you don't either something was done wrong during installation or you have a bad card. Start over with a new card and watch for any messages during the process.

[flummoxed]

Oh okay... I did the installation from another machine, because for some reason the XO is not picking up the sd card in /dev. I guess it's incompatible with the XO? It's a Lexar 2GB card.

[mavrothal]

Oh okay... I did the installation from another machine, because for some reason the XO is not picking up the sd card in /dev. I guess it's incompatible with the XO? It's a Lexar 2GB card.

If it's another Linux machine and you have changed "mmcblk0" with the correct "sdX" in dd, sfdisk and mke2fk commands, should be OK as soon as you copy the security folder from your XO.
However, if your card is not detectable by the XO when you boot to Sugar and insert the card (assuming that you DID NOT inactivate haldaemon in this case) you are looking for a new card.

[flummoxed]

Sounds like that's the case then... damn. Guess I'm gonna need a different card.

[bronson]

I doubt you need a new card.  Some suggestions:

Make sure you boot with the SD card *uninstalled*.  Don't stick it in the XO until after you've stopped haldaemon.

Don't use that sfdisk command to create the partition.  It doesn't work well on larger SD cards.  cfdisk worked great for my 8GB card: "cfdisk /dev/mmcblk0"  Now delete your old partitions and create a single partition that takes over the entire SD card.  It will be Linux by default.

[teapot]

Just to let you know that q2e33 corrects the sound problem in Ubuntu and now works as good as the original q2e18. We'll see if any other problem crops up....

Oh, finally... I am way too busy at the moment to deal with TWO firmware projects (currently I work on completely unrelated firmware project at work, and it takes all my time).

On a side note. I was wondering if all these "windows-ready" OFW modifications would make Puppy linux bootable. My initial attempt failed miserable. I guess OFW still needs a proper olpc.fth and maybe EFI/grub (the ones from DebXO didn't work...).
Oh well,... just a thought for linux competent people.

As long as you use XO-compatible kernel, OFW should boot it. I guess, it's possible to coerce "Windows" support into running GRUB, however I have no idea why would anyone want to do such a thing.

[mavrothal]

On a side note. I was wondering if all these "windows-ready" OFW modifications would make Puppy linux bootable. My initial attempt failed miserable. I guess OFW still needs a proper olpc.fth and maybe EFI/grub (the ones from DebXO didn't work...).
Oh well,... just a thought for linux competent people.

As long as you use XO-compatible kernel, OFW should boot it. I guess, it's possible to coerce "Windows" support into running GRUB, however I have no idea why would anyone want to do such a thing.

I do not want to change Puppy Linux's kernel. I just want to boot XO with the standars Puppy 4.1.2, but from what I understand Puppy Linux needs a BIOS.
I was hopping that since XO's OFW is becoming "Windows-friendly" might be recognizable by Puppy. It is not.
I thought that GRUB/EFI/olpc.fth from DebXO (redirected to Puppy's vmlinuz/initrd.gz) might help. It did not (with my level of knowledge...)
I guess it needs a properly structured olpc.fth to have a hope but is beyond my abilities to even attempt...
Any suggestions are welcome. Again the idea is to boot XO with Puppy linux (clearly off topic...)

[teapot]

I do not want to change Puppy Linux's kernel. I just want to boot XO with the standars Puppy 4.1.2, but from what I understand Puppy Linux needs a BIOS.

I probably will be possible to run a PC-oriented Linux installer on XO under BIOS emulation, however to make it properly run in full resolution you will still have to add XO-specific or at least Geode-specific video driver.

I was hopping that since XO's OFW is becoming "Windows-friendly" might be recognizable by Puppy. It is not.
I thought that GRUB/EFI/olpc.fth from DebXO (redirected to Puppy's vmlinuz/initrd.gz) might help. It did not (with my level of knowledge...)
I guess it needs a properly structured olpc.fth to have a hope but is beyond my abilities to even attempt...
Any suggestions are welcome. Again the idea is to boot XO with Puppy linux (clearly off topic...)

olpc.fth can load kernel and ramdisk, the problem is, kernel will expect at least VGA-compatible hardware.

[dostenso]

OK - first, many thanks for all the effort on this.

Second - I am a complete novice... I have no Linux experience, but I want to install Ubuntu on my OLPC so I can have a more familiar and useful desktop environment.

I upgraded to the latest build  via complete reflash from usb and have the firmware per instructions.
I have downloaded the security key and my "about" screen shows an unlocked padlock symbol.
I'm using a sandisk 4gb sd card that I have used successfully with the xo in the past.

I've followed the instructions precisely as written in the instructions in this post, but I'm getting the following screens in the process and I am unable to proceed to the next step (see below:)
If anyone can tell me what the issue is and how I can proceed, I would be most appreciative!

(and just to clarify - it is mmcblk0  with a ZERO and not a letter O - right?)

Thanks

[root@xo-10-BA-09 ~]# dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/mmcblk0 bs=4096 count=1
1+0 records in
1+0 records out
4096 bytes (4.1 KB) copied, 0.185718 s, 22.1 kB/s

[root@xo-10-BA-09 ~]#  echo -e ',,L,*\n\n\n' | sfdisk /dev/mmcblk0
Checking that no-one is using this disk right now...
OK

Disk /dev/mmcblk0: 124800 cylinders, 4 heads, 16 sectors/track

sfdisk: ERROR: sector 0 does not have an msdos signature
 /dev/mmcblk0: unrecognized partition table type
Old situation:
No partitions found
New situation:
Units = cylingers of 32768 bytes, blocks of 1024 bytes, counting from 0

   Device Boot     Start     End      #cyls      #blocks     ID     System
/dev/mmcblk0p1    *       0+   124799   124800-     3993599+    83    Linux
/dev/mmcblk0p2            0              -                               0        0    Empty
{repeats same for 0p3 and 0p4}

Successfully wrote the partition table

Re-reading the partition table...

If you created or changed a DOS partition, /dev/foo7, say, then use dd(1) to zero the first 512 bytes... {it goes on a bit}

root@xo-10-BA-09 ~]#  mke2fs -jL OLPCRoot/dev/mmcblk0p1

Usage: mke2fs [-c| -l filename] ... it goes on to list a bunch of codes  seems like it is implying I didn't do it right... but no error message per se

root@xo-10-BA-09 ~]# mount /dev/mmcblk0p1 /mnt
mount: you must specify the filesystem type

And here I am stuck with no clue of what to do.