[olpc-help] Confused about updating G1G1 XO

[Rick Emery]

First, thank you very much for your reply. I was getting a little  
discouraged because I wasn't getting information. My reply is inline  
below...

Quoting "Richard A. Smith" <richard at laptop.org>:

> Rick Emery wrote:
>
>> 1. I updated olpc-update to version 2.0 per instructions that I found,
>> and have tried updating from a USB thumb drive (olpc-update --usb) and
>> over the internet (olpc-update -rv 656). Both times I got the message:
>>
>> New build not signed; this update won't boot without a developer key.
>> Update aborted; use --force to override.
>
> The XO laptops ship in what called secure mode.  Or "With security
> enabled"  In this mode the XO will only boot a kernel that has been
> cryptographically signed by OLPC.  The system firmware will also refuse
> to reload an OS image that has not been signed.
>
> None of our developent or testing images are signed so olpc-update is
> telling you that you have a laptop in secure mode and you are trying to
> install an update that will render your machine unbootable until you
> reload a signed OS.
>
> All of our developers and testers use machines that are in non-secure
> mode or "unlocked" via a developer key.  We only test the "secure"
> versions at the very last stage of OS release.

That makes sense. So, 650 is the last *signed* build (and hence why  
'olpc-update 656' didn't work for me)? I thought I had seen other  
people mention that they were able to update without a developer key,  
but I could be misremembering.

>> Is there a definitive resource for keeping a G1G1 laptop up to date?
>> Again, this isn't mine (though I wish I'd gotten one for myself  ),
>> and I have no desire to experiment with my son's educational tool.
>
> The official signed complete OS images are located here:
>
> http://download.laptop.org/xo-1/os/official/
>
> You would use these images via the "hold all 4 buttons down on boot" it
> will _completely_ erase the contents of your NAND flash.  So you would
> only used these for "clean" installs or recovery when the OS won't boot.

This is how I ended up updating. I downloaded the 656 files to a USB  
drive, and booted the XO holding the four game keys. It went without a  
hitch, and as expected, lost all data. Did I read correctly that  
upgrading via olpc-update will preserve the existing data?

> If you look at the above URL you will only see 3 images. 650, 653, and
> 656.  We call these images ship.x (x = 0,1,2) because the latest of
> these are the images that the factory loads.
>
> These are the _only_ numbers you can feed to olpc-update when your XO is
> in secure mode and have it continue to boot.
>
> So if you wanted to manually run the latest stable image you would use
> 'olpc-update 656'.  But you don't have to do that.

Which is what I did, and was told that the new build was not signed.  
Now I'm confused again :-)

> Periodically XO's that have internet access will phone home to the olpc
> severs and check for a signed OS update.  If they find one then they
> will prompt the user for an upgrade.  So really, to keep an XO
> up-to-date you don't actually have to do anything until asked.

To my knowledge, this never happened. This is my 10-year-old son's  
laptop, but he says he never got a prompt to upgrade.

> The current builds that are under heavy testing are called the Update.1
> series.  Its on the path to become the next "signed" (stable) release.
> If you have a developer key and "unlock" your XO then you can see what
> the futures holds for the OS.
>
> And finally there is the Joyride series.  Joyride is automated build
> that pulls the latest and greatest packages from the developers.
> Generally we try to keep it working but every so often we have invasive
> changes (or bugs) that totally break things.  If joyride breaks then you
> can post about it on the devel@ list but you get to keep the pieces.  If
> you are not a developer or bleeding edge tester then you probably don't
> want to live here but it represents the absolute latest in the OLPC
> software stack.

This part I understood. I haven't messed with developer builds because  
it's my son's, and it's more important that it work for him than that  
I get to play around with it :-)

On another note, after the upgrade to 656, the gui asked for my WPA  
key but didn't appear to accept it (just kept re-prompting). I was  
able to get it to work by running the Wpa.sh script, but should I  
report as a bug somewhere that the gui didn't work for me?

Thanks again for the reply!
Rick