[OLPC-devel] where we stand as of the end of aug 23 re: LinuxBIOS

[Jim Gettys]

Yes, great progress...

Left to do before we open the floodgates:
  1) packaging up and testing our existing fixes and packaging of the
flashrom tools and LinuxBIOS in the image. Add -noatime to that list of
fixes.
  2) the Libertas wireless driver problem.  Wireless work can't come to
a halt.  We can revisit this position late in the day if we think this
will delay release beyond today.
  3) testing of the bits, and vetting of directions.  We have 8 virgin
boards here at OLPC we can use. When we think we have the final bits,
I'd appreciate those who have been testing LinuxBIOS also test that
image at least once.
  4) post the LinuxBIOS/Linux as bootloader sources  that correspond to
the LinuxBIOS image we will use (either as source RPM or as tarball; it
is all the same to me).
  5) send announcement.

The most worrying by far is 2), though, as it may be signs of a deeper
problem.

I also have some concern about the problem Mitch saw with USB. We'll
have to see if anyone else sees them during testing.

We should by default mount our flash/disks -noatime; otherwise some
one's flash key can wear out quickly.  Let people running on hard disks
re-enable atime if they want it.
                                   Regards,
                                         - Jim


On Wed, 2006-08-23 at 22:06 -0400, Christopher Blizzard wrote:
> It sounds like we've made a good amount of progress.  On the image side 
> we have an image that appears to work well under the following 
> circumstances:
> 
> o Insyde BIOS with USB HDD
> o Insyde BIOS with USB Flash Drive
> o LinuxBIOS to internal NAND flash
> 
> Things I'm not sure about about but I think work, based on conversations 
> on IRC:
> 
> o LinuxBIOS with USB HDD or USB Flash Drive
> 
> Things I know don't work:
> 
> o Booting with QEMU
> 
> Stuff that we still need to fix:
> 
> o X config with the amd driver.  Jim posted a config file and Jordan 
> followed up with a note on how to turn off the VGA Probing with 
> LinuxBIOS.  As of right now the amd driver fails if you're using 
> LinuxBIOS because it doesn't support VESA.
> 
> o Switch between X configs based on whether or not we're using QEMU or 
> LinuxBIOS or Insyde.  This isn't hard (just look at the CPU) but it just 
> needs to get done tomorrow.
> 
> o Marcelo was packaging up the buildrom stuff this afternoon and should 
> have it done tonight or tomorrow.  Once that's done we'll have to run 
> through a bunch of tests and make sure that we have a final working image.
> 
> o This is the first build with the libertas driver included in the 
> kernel.  The USB ID shows up with insyde but does _not_ show up when 
> booting with LinuxBIOS.  Don't know what's going on with that and should 
> track it down, but probably not required for getting people up to date 
> with LinuxBIOS.
> 
> --Chris
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-- 
Jim Gettys
One Laptop Per Child