[OLPC-AU] /versions directory

[James Cameron]

On Mon, Aug 30, 2010 at 01:14:58PM +1000, Sridhar Dhanapalan wrote:
> I noticed that there's a /versions directory on the XOs. What's it
> for, 

It is to support olpc-update, and contains a pristine copy of the
installed build from which olpc-update may work from, and from which the
system may be booted after an olpc-update, using the game key sequence,
to use the previous build.

> and can we use this for recovery purposes?

Yes, you could restore the operating system thus undoing any changes
made to it.  This would not undo changes made to /home/olpc however.
I don't have a recipe.

> It would be nice if we had a quick recovery method that didn't require
> reimaging the entire XO (which also wipes the Journal).

Analyse the damage before recovery to determine if recovery was required
because of changes to /home/olpc or to the operating system files
outside that tree.  If the damage is to /home/olpc, then /versions won't
help.

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