[Server-devel] Best XSCE strategy for us in Pacific with XO-1.5 2GB Testing XSCE 3 on XO 1.5 2GB os855

Mon Jun 17 21:20:20 EDT 2013

I ordered a 64GB SD, and have it in hand. It is formatted with exfat disk
format, apparently a Microsoft proprietary standard.  There is a driver for
exfat, but it is not shipped with the XO, so there was some truth to the
hearsay that 64GB SD cards do not work on the XO. BUT . . .

I was able to read exfat formatted "out of the box" transcend 64GB drive on
a XO1.5, with a downloaded driver, so I expect that electrical
compatibility is already established.

I think you will want it to be formatted with ext4, because the OS doesn't
run on a FAT formated drive. I should caution that I have read that SD
cards have an erase block size that makes it important to preserve the
partition location and sizing, as the disk format is being erased and
reformatted.

I do not expect that the "prep-storage.sh" script which is part of
XSCE-0.3, will correctly format a 64GB SD card. I do not know whether the
XSCE install process will properly function when it is loaded into a 64GB
SD. (I expect probably so, since I don't think the OS would know whether it
was running on the mother board or on an external SD card).

I'll experiment with my new SD card, and try to document the results with a
script that you can use to format big SD cards.

George

On Mon, Jun 17, 2013 at 4:12 PM, David Leeming <david at leeming-consulting.com
> wrote:

>  In the Pacific Islands we have at least couple of recent deployments. I
> have been helping in the Solomons with a 200 XO deployment sponsored by a
> regional bank. They only received the shipment some weeks ago. In Fiji a
> few months ago, Ian Thomson supervised a larger deployment with the
> Ministry of Education and a regional university (USP). It seems that in
> both cases, we have been shipped XO-1.5s with only 2GB installed with
> release 11.3.1. I do not know the history of that.****
>
> ** **
>
> This is causing us a lot of headaches. The Journals become full as there
> is less than 100MB free space out of the box. There are work arounds but
> it’s less than optimal. We can delete Wikipedia-ES that gives us an extra
> 100MB, but then as we want to add our own favourite Activities that are not
> included in the release, we end up with the same issue. It’s a problem for
> children and teachers, even if they are taught to manage their Journals – I
> imagine it would be disruptive in class.****
>
> ** **
>
> The above is really not an issue for this particular list but it is
> relevant because we would really like to experiment with XCSE, which
> requires release 13.1.0 as the starting point. Now we see that we can’t
> install 13.1.0 on the internal drive because the os image is too large (see
> attached). We understand that if we want the XOs to be upgradable, we can
> increase the internal memory but (a) it would take 100+ hours to do so on
> all the several hundred XOs, and (b) we understand that the compatibility
> of cards can be an issue, even within the same brand. ****
>
> ** **
>
> The option of installing it on an external SD card is interesting, and I
> am going to try that. However, we want to add content storage too – so
> we’ll need a 32GB or 64GB card. Would be interested to know if anyone has
> tried with such a sized card. If we can do that, and have the content
> stored on the same card, it would be the best solution for us. ****
>
> ** **
>
> The reason we are so interested in the XSCE is because it means the
> schools would not depend on a single non-XO machine for the school server.
> We would want a solution where it’s easy to swap if something goes wrong.
> These schools are very remote, and it will not possible to download large
> amounts of data during installs etc, neither do they have sustainable
> technical skills on hand. ****
>
> ** **
>
> For these reasons the XSCE on a bootable external memory card is the best
> strategy. As long as (a) we can use a 64GB card to include our content
> storage and (b) that it will boot on any XO-1.5 2GB machine without any
> preparation.****
>
> ** **
>
> ** **
>
> *David Leeming*
>
> Solomon Islands****
>
> ** **
>
> *From:* David Leeming [mailto:david at leeming-consulting.com]
> *Sent:* Monday, 17 June 2013 8:58 p.m.
> *To:* 'George Hunt'; 'David Farning'
> *Cc:* 'Jerry Vonau'; 'server-devel'
> *Subject:* RE: [Server-devel] Testing XSCE 3 on XO 1.5 2GB os855****
>
> ** **
>
> Still trying to set up my XO-1.5 2GB ready for XSCE, which as per advice
> requires the 13.1.0 release as starting point. ****
>
> ** **
>
> I downloaded the 13.1.0 files as per****
>
> ** **
>
> http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Release_notes/13.1.0#XO-1.5****
>
> ** **
>
> 31036o1.zd****
>
> 31036o1.zd.zsp.fs1.zip****
>
> ** **
>
> Copied to a newly formatted 1GB USB stick, and checked the zd file md5sum
> matched****
>
> Renamed the zip to fs1.zip****
>
> ** **
>
> Tried it:****
>
> ** **
>
> Fails as per attached. Renaming the fs1.zip as fs.zip makes no difference.
> ****
>
> ** **
>
> Tried on a 2GB stick, also reformatted. No luck. Firmware seems OK.****
>
> ** **
>
> Something I am missing about the 2GB version of the XO-1.5 ???****
>
> ** **
>
> *David Leeming*
>
> ** **
>
> *From:* George Hunt [mailto:georgejhunt at gmail.com]
> *Sent:* Friday, 14 June 2013 8:41 p.m.
> *To:* David Farning
> *Cc:* David Leeming; Jerry Vonau; server-devel
> *Subject:* Re: [Server-devel] Testing XSCE 3 on XO 1.5 2GB os855****
>
> ** **
>
> There were kernel problems with 11.3.1 which kept us from getting the
> XO-1.5 to become an XSCE.  It was only with the 13.1.0 release, that we
> were able to get the network adapters to work properly after a reboot.****
>
> ** **
>
> So I'm afraid that everyone will save a lot of time, and pain, in the long
> run, if the install procedure is followed exactly. (
> http://wiki.laptop.org/go/User:Holt/XS_Community_Edition/0.3/Installing)**
> **
>
> ** **
>
> We were not able to test adequately the offline install for subsequent
> XSCE installations to have it be part of the 0.3 release. But for
> situations where internet access is slow, and expensive, it is possible to
> use a USB stick to transfer the rpm packages contained in the
> /var/yum/cache from the first XSCE to the next one, and greatly speed up
> the install process. (And if you leave a USB stick in the XSCE, during the
> first install, it is our intention, and design, that the /var/yum/cache
> will be copied to that USB stick during the install process on that first
> machine -- and then used automatically on a subsequent install)****
>
> ** **
>
> George****
>
> ** **
>
> On Thu, Jun 13, 2013 at 10:31 PM, David Farning <
> dfarning at activitycentral.com> wrote:****
>
> Hmm, that is an interesting point that we kind of took for granted.
>
> Our goal with the 'reference' hardware and software is to provide a
> known set of stuff which 'just works.' While other hardware, software,
> and features might work... they have not been tested.
>
> Maybe george or jerry have a good answer for you.
>
> At the risk of carbon dating myself... I grew up in the era where my
> nerdy friends and I drooled over the pages of 'Computer Shopper' for a
> 9.6 kbit/s modem. Auto Resume for stalled downloads was a life saver:)
>
> Now, for simplicity, our testing involves reflashing everything to get
> back to a known state. As you point out, that is probably not the best
> assumption for low bandwidth areas.
>
> On Thu, Jun 13, 2013 at 8:36 PM, David Leeming
> <david at leeming-consulting.com> wrote:
> > Sorry just realised the XO is only installed with 11.3.1 (os855)
> >
> >
> >
> > However, is it still possible to work around? It’s not easy or cheap to
> > download the os file.
> >
> >
> >
> > David
> >
> >
> >
> > From: David Leeming [mailto:david at leeming-consulting.com]
> > Sent: Friday, 14 June 2013 12:28 p.m.
> > To: 'server-devel'
> > Subject: Testing XSCE 3 on XO 1.5 2GB os855
> >
> >
> >
> > Testing XSCE 3 on XO 1.5 2GB os855
> >
> >
> >
> > http://wiki.laptop.org/go/User:Holt/XS_Community_Edition/0.3/Installing
> >
> >
> >
> > I get as far as step 13, after the SD card (I am testing with an 8GB
> card)
> > successfully configures.
> >
> >
> >
> > When I enter “bootstrap-xo” is replies
> >
> >
> >
> > Not an XO please run ‘xs-config’
> >
> >
> >
> > Tried to do that but
> >
> >
> >
> > xs-config: command not found
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > David Leeming
> >
> > Solomon Islands
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Server-devel mailing list
> > Server-devel at lists.laptop.org
> > http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel
> >
>
>
>
> --
> David Farning
> Activity Central: http://www.activitycentral.com****
>
> ** **
>
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