[OLPC Engineering] [Techteam] New F14-arm build os21

[James Cameron]

On Thu, Jul 21, 2011 at 08:22:42AM +1000, James Cameron wrote:
> On Wed, Jul 20, 2011 at 06:40:55AM -0400, Martin Langhoff wrote:
> > Once they learn that a particular key combination "finishes" runin
> > earlier, accidents can happen with surprising frequency.
> 
> How is the power button being prevented?
> 
> If the problem is that an early termination is indistinguishable from a
> test success, why not change runin accordingly?  I'm happy to do that if
> needed.

I didn't get an answer to my question.  This has come up ... Bert has
noticed that Ctrl-Alt-Erase doesn't work any more.  #11202.  The
installed base obviously got used to it.  Withdrawing a useful feature,
even if undocumented, will cause an increase in support costs.

So I've investigated the effect of Ctrl-Alt-Erase on runin.

When manufacturing tag TS is set to RUNIN, runin-main will be run on
boot, which will start the X server and execute runin-tests within it.

On normal successful completion, the preserve function in runin-tests
replaces /boot/olpc.fth with one that changes the TS tag to SHIP, in
inject-tags.

When the X server is terminated by Ctrl-Alt-Erase, runin-tests aborts
immediately, and so the preserve function is not executed, and the
system is then rebooted.  On the next boot, with TS still set to RUNIN,
the tests are restarted.

The same thing happens with a battery removal or power button hold.

So, when you say that this key combination "finishes" runin earlier, can
you explain your observations further?

If this was the only justification for removing the feature, then I urge
you to reconsider, and restore the feature.

-- 
James Cameron
http://quozl.linux.org.au/