Installing powerd on earlier F11 builds

[Sridhar Dhanapalan]

We're still grappling with the aftermath of http://dev.laptop.org/ticket/10402

XO-1.5s that have been damaged from overheating are being replaced,
but we also need a means to prevent others from meeting a similar
fate.

Our preferred solution is to upgrade to our latest build, which has a
fixed powerd. However, we are finding that many teachers are unable to
do this (due to lack of time, etc.). For them, we are devising a
simple means for them to specifically update powerd on their systems.
This method employs a modified customisation stick[0][1] to
automatically install the RPMs.

A challenge is that the XOs came from the factory (starting in May
2010) with a range of builds ranging from os65 to os203. The earlier
builds have power management handled by ohm[2] instead of powerd. This
raises some questions:

  1. are there any problems with simply removing ohm and installing powerd?
  2. at what point did powerd become usable in F11 XO builds?
  3. are there any other changes that we need to be aware of, e.g. in
the power management panel in My Settings in Sugar?
  4. do we need to upgrade the firmware as well?
  5. is there anything else that we need to be aware of?


Thanks,
Sridhar


[0] http://lists.laptop.org/pipermail/devel/2011-May/031901.html
[1] http://dev.laptop.org.au/issues/593
[2] http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OHM_power_management


Sridhar Dhanapalan
Technical Manager
One Laptop per Child Australia
M: +61 425 239 701
E: sridhar at laptop.org.au
A: G.P.O. Box 731
     Sydney, NSW 2001
W: www.laptop.org.au