A custom Gentoo Linux for OLPC

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GentooXO installation

Your machine should be unlocked and you must have copied your developer key to the /security folder on the OLPC's internal nand-flashdrive already. Your key is only usable on your OLPC.

Format the flashcard or USB disk with ext2, preferrably.

Code Listing: Formating flashcard or USB disk with ext2

mkfs.ext2 -T small -L gentooxo /dev/sda1

Extract the GentooXO archive you downloaded (assuming your flashcard/USB key is mounted at /media/gentoo).

Code Listing: Extracting

tar xvzf gentooxo-2.0.tar.gz -C /media/gentooxo

As root, open the file named /media/gentooxo/boot/olpc.fth in a text-editor.

I tried booting from an actual external USB drive, but I was unable to get it to work. If anyone has managed to do this, please let me know.

Plug the flashcard/USB flash hard drive into your OLPC.

Power on the OLPC.

If you are not logged in automatically as the user OLPC and are instead brought to the login screen, enter the login and password (olpc / olpc).

Note that GentooXO will NOT modify your OLPC's current install. GentooXO (as presented here) runs entirely off of the USB Key/Flashcard it is installed to. It can be used as a recovery boot disk if you are trying to repair your Sugar installation.

As root, enter mount /mnt/internal_flash to enable read-access access of OLPC's internal flash drive.

Release notes for GentooXO-2.0

• The /boot/olpc.fth file is set to boot off of a USB key, so if that is what you are using you don't need to change the olpc.fth file.

• Everything (sound, microphone, camera, WIFI) works and is up to date to April 26th, 2010.

• If you are at an open access-point when you boot up, you will have WIFI immediately, otherwise you need to edit the /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf file and add your access-point key or add your access point using the WPA Supplicant Administration GUI (wpa_gui).

• wpa_gui will start at the default-user (user: olpc password: olpc) Gnome log in.

• You will need to type in the root password: olpc to let the Wireless Access Point management software run.

• There have been a few times where I had to restart eth0 (/etc/init.d/net.eth0 restart) for it to work though but be patient, even when it works, it takes some time to log in to the access point. Once logged in, WIFI throughput is very good.

• I've been able to play mp4-encoded videos of HDTV tv shows with MPlayer and it works well enough.

What doesn't work:

• There are no icons on the desktop nor in the menus. I believe this will be fixed by the next version of the Geode video driver. Update: CONFIRMED Thanks to the work of the Geode development team, the current version of the video driver fixes this bug and runs very stably on the OLPC! Thanks Mart! Thanks Martin-Éric!
  
  To apply the update run the following as root:
  
  emerge --sync --quiet
  emerge -v x11-drivers/xf86-video-geode
  
  This should fetch and install version 2.11.8 (or better) of the driver.
  
  This will require you to log out and log back in to load the new driver.

• Sound: You need to run the alsamixer command in a terminal to unmute the soundcard. You must unmute the Master and PCM channels.

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To know more about this project, write to me at info@gentooxo.org.