[olpc-help] Recover process => Boot failed. Cause for RMA?

[Anonymous]

It's time for me to answer my own question:
Boot + gamepad "O" failure is the expected behavior on a new, unmodified G1G1 laptop, and is not a problem at all, much less requiring an RMA exchange.

Explanation
There are two main ways of updating or upgrading the software on a G1G1 machine:
1. The simple online update here (http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Olpc-update) backs up the current software to an "alternate image," and preserves the activity data. After the update, you can switch back and forth between the prior and new software builds/levels by holding the "O" gamepad key during power on. This is the so-called "recover process," and is "sticky." Say that you had build 650, and did an online update to 653. Using the recover process switches the system back to 650 for the current and subsequent boots. If you repeat the recover process (again holding the "O" gamepad key), the system returns to 653, etc. (Despite what this article (http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Firmware_Security#Process) claims, the recover process doesn't appear to use /boot-alt. It seems that some wiki material is somewhat inaccurate or out-of-date.)
2. The activated upgrade here (http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Activated_Upgrade) simply replaces the entire software installation with a new one, losing all the activity data, and of course not creating an alternate image for the recover process to use. I guess you would use activated upgrade if things were going wrong and you wanted to completely re-image the machine. Otherwise, you could just get current fixes via online update.