[Techteam] Announcing Q3C05 for XO-1.5

[Mikus Grinbergs]

FYI.

I apply extensive customizations to the builds I install.  In my case, 
both the customization scripts and the packages-to-be-installed reside 
on the "permanent" SD card I place into each XO.  But there is no reason 
why in your case they could not reside on a "non-permanent" USB stick 
used only during the customization procedure.


My customizations (and the run-time scripts I have added to my systems) 
depend upon certain environmental variables.  When I first boot a new 
build, I enter these by hand.  But as soon as my customization scripts 
run, they insert commands into the appropriate places in /etc to set 
these values on boot (so every session has them).  I also substitute my 
own /home/olpc/.bashrc, which extends $PATH to access all the scripts 
(particularly for run-time) that I have added.


I manually run (at first boot) all my customization scripts (currently 
10 or so) from the Terminal Activity (after doing 'su' to get into root, 
but keeping the environmental variables set up for user olpc).

The steps performed by those initialization scripts are (roughly):

  *)  Set up "well-known" filenames (I use /home as the location) to
      provide pointers to things like the installed python version and
      to provide values for things like the net address of the ethernet.

  *)  Install additional RPMs ( for instance, those needed by Linux
      applications I will be running -- those applications themselves
      reside on my "permanent" SD card ).

  *)  Customize certain files in /etc

  *)  Link up my Activities (they reside on the "permanent" SD card)

  *)  Add pointers into the system for resources kept on the "permanent"
      SD card -- such as Java, additional fonts, Adobe, Chrome, etc.

  *)  Customize certain files in Sugar


As new releases of Fedora and Sugar come out, I need to update my 
customization scripts to accomodate any changes.  But how I have 
structured the customizations application process has served me well -- 
all the way from Fedora 9 to Fedora 17, and from Sugar 0.82 to Sugar 0.96.


mikus