Installing powerd on earlier F11 builds

[Paul Fox]

hi sridhar -- i'll take a stab at more detailed answers to all of
these questions tomorrow..  powerd was developed initially on machines
that had ohmd installed (i think the rpm still tries to uninstall
ohmd first) so it's probably not far from working.  but it's entirely
possible (likely) that some support for older kernels has been lost
along the way, or, more correctly, that newer powerd features depend
on fixes/features in newer kernels.

obviously a system upgrade would be preferable...  but i'm sure you feel
the same way.  :-)

paul

sridhar wrote:
 > 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
 > _______________________________________________
 > Devel mailing list
 > Devel at lists.laptop.org
 > http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel

=---------------------
 paul fox, pgf at laptop.org