olpc.fth question

[Kevin Gordon]

On Wed, Jun 13, 2012 at 9:25 AM, Sridhar Dhanapalan
<sridhar at laptop.org.au>wrote:

> Building upon Jerry's message, you may be interested in our One
> Education USB (formerly called XO-AU USB):
>
> https://dev.laptop.org.au/projects/xo-au-usb/
>
> The idea is to have a single USB stick with many tools that may be
> needed in the field. It is designed for use by (non-technical)
> teachers to manage their classroom deployments.
>
> You can download a working version from
> http://mirror.aarnet.edu.au/pub/olpc-au/XO/OE-USB/1.1/
>

Sridhar:

Thanks for the link.

Just arrived back in Canada.  We'll definitely look at implementing this
technique.  Currently we incorporate all of our 'utilities' onto all of the
machines via the custom builds.  The 'teacher' stick model will work well
in our infrastructure, as we have local people at each implementation who
perform all of the ad-hoc maintenance - double benefit: save space on the
spins, and keep gparted out of the menu :-)

Cheers

KG

>
> The base version contains no OS, but the xo15 version contains OLPC
> Australia's latest XO-1.5 image.
>
> To use, extract the zip file directly to the root of a USB drive. Then
> insert into a developer-unlocked XO-1.5 and boot. You should get a
> boot menu from the stick.
>
> Sridhar
>
>
> On 13 June 2012 21:23, Kevin Gordon <kgordon420 at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Jerry, James and Martin:
> >
> > Adam and I thank you all ... a lot  We are now 100% operational using 1
> USB
> > stick to update all versions of XO.  We will add some more exception
> > handling and 1.75 specifics to the procedures once we return to Canada,
> but
> > the combination of OOB 4.1 and the olpc.fth boot are making the frequent
> > process of updating/enhancing things while here in Kenya just fly!!!
> >
> > Cheers,
> >
> > KG
> >
> > On Tue, Jun 12, 2012 at 8:00 PM, James Cameron <quozl at laptop.org> wrote:
> >>
> >> On Tue, Jun 12, 2012 at 11:08:29AM -0400, Kevin Gordon wrote:
> >> > Disclaimer:  Newbie Forth question ....:-)
> >>
> >> Always welcome.
> >>
> >> > We are trying to create a consolidated unsecured update stick.
> >>
> >> I worked on a secured update drive last week, so the techniques are on
> >> my mind.
> >>
> >> > [...]
> >> > So for those coming from a non-Forth background, we have hit a road
> >> > block. Is there perhaps a way to store a 'possible' command into a
> >> > variable then execute that 'variable' as a command, thereby perhaps
> >> > bypassing any of the apparent syntax error checking?  Unexpected
> >> > end-of-line is the most common result from attempting to call within
> >> > an if statement.  Or, we get copy-nand? on the 1.5 or fs-update? on
> >> > the 1.0 when the command exists in the source - whether it will
> >> > actually get 'called' or not ,based on the variable containing the
> >> > machine type..
> >>
> >> evaluate or eval is a word that expects a string descriptor on the
> >> stack, and then executes the string as if it were typed.
> >>
> >> : eval  ( adr len -- )  ...  ;
> >>
> >> For example:
> >>
> >>        ok " 8 ." eval
> >>        8
> >>        ok
> >>
> >> or
> >>
> >>        : install-xo-1  " copy-nand u:\fs.img"  eval  ;
> >>
> >> The string can be assembled from pieces rather than from literals.
> >> You may find an example of that in the power log collector on the
> >> wiki, which assembles filenames.
> >>
> >> If there is a possibility that the evaluated command may fail, you
> >> should catch the exception and handle it.  Use catch for that.
> >>
> >> Good reference for catch and throw:
> >> http://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/anton/euroforth/ef98/milendorf98.pdf
> >>
> >> For example:
> >>
> >> : install-xo-1
> >>   " copy-nand u:\fs.img"      ( adr len )
> >>   ['] eval                    ( adr len 'eval )
> >>   catch                       ( ??? ??? exception# | 0 )
> >>   if                          ( ??? ??? )
> >>      2drop                    ( )
> >>      ." copy-nand failed, press any key" key drop
> >>   then                        ( )
> >> ;
> >>
> >> You might also place the exception handler higher up.
> >>
> >> We also have $fs-update in later XO-1.5 and XO-1.75 versions, so that
> >> eval is not needed.  There is no $copy-nand .
> >>
> >> --
> >> James Cameron
> >> http://quozl.linux.org.au/
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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> > Devel at lists.laptop.org
> > http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
> >
>
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