[olpc-help] Automated update

Mon Mar 17 10:05:30 EDT 2008

 Is there anything that has to be done to facilitate the "automatic
update" which you speak of? Does it require the developers key to be on
the G1G1 laptop? If so is there a way to install the key which does not
require a PHD in LINUX? So far the only command line instruction I have
had work in terminal is su<cr>.

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Today's Topics:

   1. Re:  SOFTWARE UPDATE QUESTION (Richard A. Smith)

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message: 1
Date: Sat, 15 Mar 2008 00:03:17 -0400
From: "Richard A. Smith" <richard at laptop.org>
Subject: Re: [olpc-help] SOFTWARE UPDATE QUESTION
To: OLPC Community Support <community-support at lists.laptop.org>
Cc: JOSEPH L ANELLO <nubicular1 at msn.com>
Message-ID: <47DB4A85.4090807 at laptop.org>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed

Steve Holton wrote:
> On Fri, Mar 7, 2008 at 11:02 PM, JOSEPH L ANELLO <nubicular1 at msn.com 
> <mailto:nubicular1 at msn.com>> wrote:
> 
>     *I'VE READ RECENTLY THAT THERE WAS GOING TO BE A SOFTWARE UPDATE
>     THAT EXTENDED THE BATTERY LIFE OF MY NEW OLPC UP TO 10 HOURS. THAT
>     WOULD BE GREAT!*
>     *WHERE DO I FIND UPDATE INFORMATION SUCH AS THIS. I'D LIKE TO HAVE
>     THE LATEST SOFTWARE ALL THE TIME.*
>     ** 
>     *HOW DO I DO IT?*
>     *THERE'S SO MUCH TO LEARN.....*
>     ** 
>     ** 
>     *THANKS IN ADVANCE FOR YOU HELP/INPUT.*
>     ** 
>     ** 
>     *J.ANELLO*
> 

I have a brief discussion of updating and the various trees you can
update from here:

http://lists.laptop.org/pipermail/community-support/2008-March/001783.ht
ml

The extended battery life you are referring to is from the agressive
power management scheme that we will eventually deploy.

Under this scheme the default state of the CPU (and other components)
will be off. ie. powered off.  Not just in sleep or low power but off. 
The only components powered up are the display (in freeze mode),
embedded controller, touchpad/keybard and the wireless device.

When the user does something, (mouse or keyboard) or when a wireless
packet arrives that is for the laptop the embedded controller wakes up
the host CPU, the display unfreezes and the CPU processes the
outstanding requests, then it gets shut back down.  We call this low
power mode "suspened".

Using this scheme we can reduce the power consumption of the laptop and
extend the battery life.

BUT, Its not magic.  It only works when there is idle time for the CPU
to be turned off.  If you are heavily using the laptop, such as running
the camera, or some other activity that requires constant CPU usage then
this aggressive power management will never have a chance to save power.
In this case you won't ever get more than 3 to 4 hours of runtime.

In Update.1 we enabled the _beginnings_ of this scheme.  Update.1 would
  shut off the CPU after 30 seconds of idleness.  However, over the last
2 weeks we have decided to have this feature disabled by default.  Its
just not ready yet.  Update.1 testing has uncovered a lot of areas where
this aggressive scheme causes applications to fail in various ways.  If
the user chooses then it can be turned back on by a simple config
setting change.

I believe that it will stay enabled in Joyride so that we can continue
to test and have it ready for update.2

A special note about Update.1:

Update.1 is nearing completion.  We just completed release candidate 2. 
  In Update.1 there are a _lot_ of changes.  One change in particular
needs to be noted for all the G1G1 laptops.  In update.1 we have
separated the core operating system and the activities.  They are no
longer distributed as a single image.  This allows for installs to be
customized at install time which was a requirement in many of our
deployment countries.

Update.1 is intended to be used from USB disk with a complete re-flash
of the NAND flash followed by a special "customization" script that
installs activities.  Deployment countries will update the laptops from
the factory image to update.1 as they are distributed in country.

Because of the separation of operating system and activities if a G1G1
user blindly installs update.1 via olpc-update they will find that they
no longer have any activities.  They aren't deleted but you have to do
some special commands to make them show back up.

Therefore update.1 (as released) will _not_ be automatically pushed to
G1G1 users.  Soon after update.1 is released we will prepare some sort
of merged image that is the equivalent to what is in ship.2 series (ie
656) that G1G1 people can use to upgrade.

So the key item is that G1G1 users who hear about all the cool new stuff
in update.1 and want to manually use olpc-update _before_ we prepare the
merged (OS+activities) image must READ THE RELEASE NOTES (currently
under preparation).  They must understand what they are doing or they
will boot up to find zero activities in sugar.

G1G1 users who just let the automatic update happen don't have to worry
about it since we will push the update only after we have a merged image
ready.

--
Richard Smith  <richard at laptop.org>
One Laptop Per Child

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