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[markhadman]

I then successfully pasted that long URL into the Terminal activity, after typing the "su" and clicking Enter. As per the instructions on the Wiki page, I then rebooted the machine.

So . . . did I do it? How can I confirm my Developer's Key is there? After I rebooted, I opened the the Terminal again and that long URL is no longer visible. If I have a Developer's Key, it is currently hidden under some sort of electronic doormat of some sort.

Questions:

(1) What was the 'long URL' command that you pasted into the Terminal? Could you please paste it here for us?

(2) Did you press Enter after you pasted the command, and if so what response/acknowledgment did you get from the Terminal?

(3) Is there now a file in the /security folder called develop.sig  ?


The following are going to help you faster than a forum:

http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Terminal_Activity - an intro to the sugar Terminal and linux terminal in general
http://linuxmanpages.com/  - an online repository of the linux 'man' pages which are installed with almost every linux distribution except the one that comes shipped with your XO. Man pages tell you how to use each and every piece of software installed on your system, from your photo editor all the way down to the lowliest terminal commands like ls, cd, wget, whoami etc.
http://www.linux.org/ - masses of information useful to the linux beginner, including short courses for you to follow.

Regarding the bricking of an XO-1 if security isn't disabled, this is the quote from the Developer's Key Wiki page that got me all hot and bothered . . .

Once you have a developer key and have booted your system using it, it is possible to permanently disable the firmware security system, even if your XO's developer key goes away. If you forget to do this, and you usually run ordinary free software distributions like Debian, Ubuntu, or Fedora on your XO, your XO will at some point refuse to boot.

It them instructs you to . . .

   1.  Reboot the XO
   2. Press the Esc key during boot to get to the 'ok' prompt.
   3. Type 'disable-security' at the 'ok' prompt and press enter

If disable-security says "Restarting to enable SPI flash writing. Try again after the system restarts.", you'll need to start over with the Esc key again as above. If disable-security says "No wp key", it means that security is already disabled.

So, you're saying that I should ignore all of this? Really?!?

It's not saying that your XO will be bricked (permanently unusable), just that it'll refuse to boot any operating system that isn't digitally signed by OLPC. Until, that is, you put the /security/develop.sig file back in place.

[Wayan Vota]

BeninTucson,

You are leading the pack on the Xtra Ordinary software - I just got around to ordering it yesterday myself.  Please, please, please write a review of it once you get it to work.  And also post a separate "Hot To" (if needed).

I especially want you to write a review since the XO is what brought you into the world of Linux.  To me, this is a powerful message sometimes lost in the noise.

[BeninTucson]

Hi guys . . .

Today turned out to be busier than I though it would be, so the XO-1 never got booted
up. I'm out the door to work in another hour, but I'll have plenty of time to (re)do this Development Key stuff tomorrow morning.

To answer Marks questions . . .

"(1) What was the 'long URL' command that you pasted into the Terminal? Could you please paste it here for us?"

I'm on my iMac, so I can't paste it from the XO-1, but this is it, manually typed . . .

wget -p /security https://activation.laptop.org/devkey/shesDkqS/develop.sig

I was very careful to preserve spaces on either side of the "-p" and after "security"
as well as the capitalized "D" and "S" towards the end of the script.

"(2) Did you press Enter after you pasted the command, and if so what response/acknowledgment did you get from the Terminal?"

Yes, when I was finally able to paste it in on the 2nd attempt. All it did after I pressed enter was give me another prompt area immediately following the above pasted in script. Nothing else.

"(3) Is there now a file in the /security folder called develop.sig ?"

Don't know. But I guess that would be good news, if there is. I'll check on this tomorrow morning before proceeding further . . . and I take a look at those other links you've left here.

Good to know that my XO-1 won't brick if I don't disable firmware security after obtaining a Developer's Key. That part of the instructions is written in a particularly heavily accented dialect (XOnian?) of Computerese. 

Wayan . . . I'm more than happy to write a review/article when I finally get Xtra Ordinary
running and I've had time to explore its assets and deficits. As you mention, this and Sugar are my 1st forays into the world of Linux, and it's all happening on the XO-1.
I'm using this thread as an open notebook of my progress and it will certainly help me compose something that is more concise and readable later on.

Ben in Tucson

[BeninTucson]

OK folks . . .

I spent most of today trying this Developer key installation and, so I could keep the most accurate accounting of events possible, took about 14 photographers of screen shots.
I've distilled that photographic information into the steps described below.

The following is what you see upon entering the Terminal Activity (immediately below the multi-lingual “Hello, children of the world!” greeting at the top of the page.) I am assuming that the typed figure following the first hyphen is a numeric “zero” and not a capitalized alphabetic letter “oh.”

[olpc@xo-0C-FB-7B ~]$

This script is followed by a space and then a small solid black rectangular prompt area.



You are then instructed to type the letters “su” into the prompt area and click “Enter.”
Doing so gives you what is shown below, with more scripting being automatically added and continuing onto the next line . . .

[olpc@xo-0C-FB-7B ~]$ su
bash-3.2#

This new script is followed by a space and a small hollow/white rectangular prompt area.




You are then instructed to paste the line of script (ie: long URL) into the prompt area
and you get this . . .

[olpc@xo-0C-FB-7B ~]$ su
bash-3.2#  wget -P /security https://activation.laptop.org/devkey/6hesDkqS/develop.sig

All of this is followed immediately by (no space) a small hollow/white rectangular prompt area.


There are no further instructions on the Developer key request web page accessed from the Browse activity on the XO-1. But the Wiki Developer key instruction page tells you to “Reboot your XO.” at this point. That’s it . . . nothing else.

Being an extreme literal follower of directions (especially when it comes to installing computer upgrades,) I didn’t close out anything. I simply went back to the Home View page and selected “Restart” to reboot. When the directions say  “Reboot your XO” then, by damn, that's what I do . . . no funny business in between. I didn’t click “Enter” again while in the Terminal Activity. I didn’t close the Terminal activity. I didn’t close the Browse activity. I didn’t head over to the kitchen and fix myself another cup of coffee. I just rebooted.

What is supposed to follow, according to Dinky’s post here the other day, is . . .

“If your developer key is installed, the XO will startup with a text screen giving you an opportunity to drop into the firmware by typing escape. Also, there will be a file /security/develop.sig.”

I saw none of that. The machine booted up normally (no text screen) and, when checking the Terminal activity, it appeared exactly as if I had never attempted to do anything there.

Thinking that I’ve skipped a step or otherwise compromised this final step by rebooting in the most abrupt way possible (i.e: following the Wiki directions precisely,) I have retried the entire Developer key installation process several times as outlined above but with the following variations at the very end . . .

(1) Close down Terminal and Browse activities before rebooting.

(2) Press “Enter” following the final “long URL” script before closing down Terminal and Browse activities before rebooting.

(3) Pressing “Enter" following the final “long URL” script and then, from the pull-down menu on the top right corner of the Terminal activity page, select “Become root” . . . then closing down Terminal and Browse activities before rebooting.

(4) Went to the kitchen and made myself another cup of coffee while rebooting.  

No joy on any of the above. Each time, after the machine boots up again, the Terminal activity looks untouched.

So . . . any new ideas? What am I missing here?

Ben in Tucson

[eden]

Hi Ben!  I recently reinstalled my XO system and then tonight I followed the "wget -P /security https://blahblahlongurl/develop.sig" step in Terminal to see if I could help you.  After I pasted in this command that included my developer key, Terminal posted a lot of text that showed me that the key was being downloaded, and then returned to the bash-3.2# prompt.  Did this happen for you?

[eden]

Also, if you did see text after the command that says the key was downloaded, when you reboot, start tapping the escape key right away.  The boot process will stop and you will see the word

ok

on the white screen.  You can type

disable-security

right by the word ok. 

Hit enter.

It will say one of two things, and the one that includes something about wp is the one that tells you security is disabled and the developer key is present. 

It will say ok again, so you could then type

boot

and it ought to boot the laptop.  You'll then see the fabled text scrolling by on a black screen.

Good luck

[BeninTucson]

Hi Eden . . .

No, actually, I didn't get anything else following my copy/paste of the long URL. But
I tended to do my program shutdown and rebooting right away, not thinking that other stuff was on it's way from OLPC. Knowing that more stuff is supposed to eventually  appear and that another  <bash-3.2#> prompt is supposed to be the final thing after all of that is VERY helpful information. Why couldn't have they put that little info tidbit on the Wiki instructions? All they say there is to reboot.

I have a reliable and secure wireless connection at home but, so as to save a little money
each month, I have opted for the least expensive high speed package that my ISP offers.
This can sometime make things like live video streaming (YouTube, etc.) kind of jumpy
and larger downloads a little slower (still a heck of a lot faster than the dial-up I was using until just a couple of years ago.) My thoughts are now to repeat all of my tried-and-true procedures outlined above  -  pre-rebooting -  and THEN go to the kitchen to make that cup of coffee    . . . simply give it some extra time. That's the plan for tomorrow morning.

Your description of the reboot with the escape key is outlined on the Wiki. Just haven't gotten that far yet.  More to come . . .

Ben in Tucson

[BeninTucson]

OK folks . . .

I think I hit pay dirt. On the first attempt to get the developers key,
I got a lot of extra text after pasting the URL and it ended with
<bash 3.2#>. 

Bingo! 

I rebooted (didn't close out any programs . . . just returned to Home view
and selected Restart.) After rebooting I returned to the Terminal activity
and was disappointed to see the regular start-up stuff in there . . . none
of my new text. 

Thinking that I might have messed things up by not closing out of Terminal
first, I attempted to do all the cutting and pasting over again. Nothing followed
on after the pasted URL. 

But maybe Terminal wouldn't show me if I had a key or not (is that correct?)
So I rebooted while holding down the Escape key. I got a standard boot the
first time but then I remember Eden saying something about "start tapping
the Escape button" when it starts rebooting.

Bingo again! 

I got the firmware security disable log-in screen. I noticed a tiny unlocked padlock
icon near the bottom right corner of the screen and I took this as a good omen.
I typed <security-disable> and pressed Enter. This first time I got the <Restarting
to enable SPI flash writing. Try again after system restarts>. It then quickly changed to the standard boot screen.

I tried a second time but didn't press/tap the Escape key properly and got a standard reboot again.

The third time was a charm. I got the Security disable screen again, retyped and clicked Enter again. This time it came up <No wp key> followed by <ok> and the black prompt rectangle.

Bingo one more time! 

But now what? The Wiki page for the Terminal key installation, once again, leaves you hanging off the edge of a cliff here. No further instructions on what to do next. 

I quickly booted up the iMac, got back on the OLPC News Forum and (remembering
that there was something else n Edens "tap the Escape key" post from last night) typed in <boot>. In all the excitement, I can't remember now if I also had to press Enter again but, all of a sudden, I'm taken to "The Black Linux Screen of Perpetual Scrolling Text" and its lookin' great.  In another minute I'm at the regular log in screen and booted.

So . . . I've got a Developer's key and my machine is now security disabled on the firmware. 

Next . . . since I practically had to offer OLPC a freshly killed electronic lamb to get this far, I want to make a backup (maybe several backups) of this precious Developer's key.
I'm sure I'll have questions on how to do this but I'll wait until later for that.

Content, happy for now and feeling a little bit more in control of the situation today . . .

Ben in Tucson

[eden]

Yay!

[BeninTucson]

 . . . and thank you, Eden. You tips are what made the difference.

Just moments ago I went to check the mail. The Xrta Ordinary SD card arrived
today! The machine, as of last week, has the most current software/firmware.
Just this morning, I've (finally!) got the Developers key loaded in and security
unlocked. How's that for perfect timing? 

I've got to spend a few hours out of the house running errands but I'll have
time to pop in the card and fire 'er up later tonight.

Ben in Tucson

[tyto]

BeninTucson
Your saga is fascinating; many thanks for taking the time and effort to write it.
One gets the impression that the people offering advice are not the developers/programmers of the software.
Where are these mental giants?Why will they not come down off the mountain to explain to us mere mortals.
And, incidentally, why is so complex a developers key necessary?
It brings to mind the Amazon, Kindle, George Orwell  "1984" fiasco

[mellon]

The developer key is ... wait for it ... for developers.   It's not for the intended users of the laptop.   The developer key exists to make the laptop unattractive to steal.   Consider this: Ben got his XO on ebay.   That means there's a market for XOs on ebay.   So without the developer key, we'd probably see XOs migrating from deployments onto ebay.   With the developer key, theft isn't a serious problem.

Why the complicated process?   Because it has to be secure.   If it were easy to re-key, it wouldn't be much of a deterrent.   That means the key needs to be a big long RSA signature, not just a simple code.   And that means you can't just type it in.   Add to that the fact that this is a non-problem, for the most part, because people like you and me and Ben are not the intended customer.   And the intended target was geeks - developers.   The very people you're proposing should come down off the mountaintop to help Ben.

Furthermore, lo and behold, some of them did, and Ben got the help he needed.   Okay, I'm not an official OLPC XO Sugar Labs developer, but I've been building Linux kernels for the XO from source for a couple of months now, and I've had my developer key working since the OLPC arrived in its cute little box a couple of years ago in the original G1G1 program.   So I'd say I'm just the sort of person Ben needed to talk to, and I'm not the only one who offered him help, either.

[BeninTucson]

Hi tyto and Ted . . .

I can certainly see Ted's point about getting a Developer's key: it isn't a standard
user's item for kids in developing world countries running Sugar. It's actually a rather ingenious scheme to have to get it from your own XO-1. My guess (correct me if I'm wrong here) is that OLPC has a way of monitoring which machine is requesting the key and this is why there is a time lag in having it prepared. If a machine is stolen and reported to OLPC as such, they can probably deny you a key (although you can still do a No-Fail software update to wipe out the old identity on an XO-1 with the aid of another computer and without a Developer's key.)

I think that tyto is saying "Yeah, OK . . . but WHY was it so difficult to actually do?"
Good point there, too. I found the Wiki directions to be very spotty in places
(contrasted with the excellently detailed instructions - complete with screen shot photos - provided on the Wiki for the No-Fail software/firmware update.) The actual process for getting the key wasn't hard, but the lack of clear directions made it feel torturous while I was doing it. If it wasn't for those who chimed in here to help me, I would still be swimming up river. Thanks again to everyone.

Oh yeah . . . I forgot to mention. I just spent about an hour on Xtra Ordinary for
the very first time! 

First impressions: it's very very good. It didn't take very long to discover how to
connect to the internet and launch the Iceweasel browser (which is basically a
Linux Firefox.) I visited familiar sites - including this one - and noted that, when
visiting most web sites for the first time, it tends to display the page blown up to
the sort of size one expects on a full size desktop machine. You basically see only
the upper left corner of any given page. The zoom-out feature on the View pull-down menu cures that pretty quickly and - unlike Sugar - remembers this setting when revisiting the same page later. I shut down the browser and relaunched the program
and these page size settings remained intact. Iceweasel, like its Firefox cousin, let's
you choose your own home page and otherwise manage settings that one
can do on any modern browser/computer combo.

One thing that is still present from Sugar on the XO-1 is the occasional out-of-control twitchy cursor. As with the stock XO-1/Sugar set up, you just have to stop what you're doing for a few seconds and let the machine recover. I plugged my Apple mouse into
one of the USB ports at one point and this gave me a little more accuracy, but it
"twitched out" this way as well. While using the mouse I also experienced a rather unusual phenomenon of getting pushed back to the previous page I was visiting.
I was reading this very thread on the Forum and, a second later, found myself on the Forum entrance page. This occured when I was scrolling quickly down a long page.
I didn't experience any backward page flipping when using the touchpad. Eventually,
I plan to get a small notebook-sized mouse for the XO-1 and I'll see how it behaves
then.

Although I didn't stumble across any pages with Flash animation, I did head over to YouTube. This old video of the Yardbirds runs smoothly on my big iMac, even with my budget high speed connection at home (not all YouTube videos do) . . .

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/f9mQkFpkShg" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/f9mQkFpkShg</a>

The good news about this on Xtra Ordinary is that it actually identifies it as a video
(not the big blank box on your screen like you would see in Sugar.) The bad news is
that the audio sounded like a skipping CD in an echo chamber and the visuals were basically reduced a slide show of selected frames. I might do slightly better on this YouTube test with a faster internet connection but probably only marginally so. It
looked as if the video was buffering from the site pretty well, so I don't think that was
the problem. I think it just comes down to the microscopic processor speed and RAM
that the XO-1 is set up with. Those who are inclined to overclock their processor may have luck here, but I'll pass on that mod. Fortunately, I had no grand plans to use the XO-1 with Xtra Ordinary for extensive music video viewing.

It's doubtful that I'll configure the included email program but I'm inclined to set up a
gMail account that I'll dedicate for use specifically for the XO-1. I'll also be sure to experiment with Open Office features as time goes by. I use iWorks on the iMac, and it does a good job of translating MS Word and Excel documents. The computers at my workplace are Windows/MS all the way, so the results I get with documents to-and-fro from there will probably be  more indicative of what Open Office on the XO-1 will be able to do when translating.

No regrets so far with Xtra Ordinary. I'm interested to hear what more experienced
Linux users have to say about it when they finally get a chance to try it out.

Much more to come . . .

Ben in Tucson

[tyto]

Hi mellon
You say:
...intended target was geeks

But I saw the intended target as kids in a 3rd world country; and thought to myself that if elementary kids can use this computer, so can I (who knows nothing about computers.)
I bought "it", although I did pause for a day when I came upon the 30 day warranty; but I rationalized it by saying to myself that as the computers were going to places where there would be very little service support they must be very well built.
And I have a couple of grand kids who could grow into it
After you have recovered from laughing at my naivety you might consider that I still do not see why the "developers key" can be considered for geek use only.
AFAIK (which is zero) the key is necessary to make almost any change.

[mellon]

Nope, the developer key is only needed if you're not going to run a released version of Sugar.   As long as you're using the laptop as it was originally shipped, you never need a developer key.   It's because we're all running Ubuntu or Xtra or whatever that we're using developer keys.

And the intended target is actually schools with children, not individual children.   You've unsuspectingly taken on the burden that is normally shouldered by a deployment team in a school: getting the laptops working and getting the teachers using them.