[Testing] Testing Summary, Auckland 14 July 2012

[James Cameron]

On Sun, Jul 15, 2012 at 11:27:11PM +1200, Tom Parker wrote:
> Rosella:
> All the text is still tiny as reported previously. Sorry, we
> haven???t taken it apart as recommended a while ago.

You're referring to Daniel Drake's suggestions on 18th June.
http://lists.laptop.org/pipermail/testing/2012-June/002757.html

> Is it possible to do an fs-update with an external drive as the
> target or otherwise copy the operating system to an external drive?

Yes, but this wouldn't test what Daniel was asking, which is whether
the problem follows the microSD card.

Even so, I'll provide an answer to your question.

To do an fs-update with an external SD card, or microSD card in an
adapter, set the device alias used by fs-update, like so:

	ok devalias fsdisk ext:0
	ok fs-update u:\file.zd

As a result, the fs-update will write to the external SD card slot
instead of the internal storage.

To copy the operating system to an external SD card you may use Tiny
Core Linux booted from a USB drive.  The microcore build gets you a
root shell prompt without requiring the USB drive to stay in the laptop:

http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Tiny_Core_Linux#microcore_3.4_for_XO-1_and_XO-1.5

Boot microcore, insert the external SD card, check from
/proc/partitions and dmesg to identify which card is which, and then
copy with dd:

	dd if=/dev/mmcblk0 of=/dev/mmcblk1

(be careful, the device order may be different depending on when the
card was inserted relative to boot time).

Open Firmware does contain fs-save, which is a much slower copy of the
blocks of the SD card to a single large file.  It will also soon
contain fs-load, capable of the reverse.  For example, attach a large
enough USB flash or hard drive, then:

	ok devialias fsdisk int:0	\ next command to use internal SD
	ok fs-save u:\sd.img		\ backup image SD to file on USB
	ok devialias fsdisk ext:0	\ next command to use external SD
	ok fs-load u:\sd.img		\ restore image to external SD

A test version for XO-1.5 is available here:
http://dev.laptop.org/~quozl/q3c08jb.rom

> We had a strange crash on shutdown. The laptop ended up sleeping,
> and when you press the power button the power light comes on for
> about 3 seconds and then goes back to sleeping. Keyboard or mouse
> entry does the same thing with the power light.

Odd.  It does sound like a suspend.

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