<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto"><div>Could a small external battery pak, like we see so many of these days, be used to power an XO? You would need a suitable cable.</div><div id="AppleMailSignature">Caryl<br><br>Sent from my iPhone</div><div><br>On Jun 3, 2016, at 11:43 PM, Samuel Greenfeld <<a href="mailto:samuel@greenfeld.org">samuel@greenfeld.org</a>> wrote:<br><br></div><blockquote type="cite"><div><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_extra"><div class="gmail_quote">On Sat, Jun 4, 2016 at 12:02 AM, Dave Crossland <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:dave@lab6.com" target="_blank">dave@lab6.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><span class=""></span><div>Sam, I am eager to learn what you personally think the date should be :)</div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>My personal answer (at least in past private discussions) has been to end support sometime in 2020.<br><br></div><div>The logic behind that being:<br><ul><li>OLPC no longer makes any batteries compatible with the XO-1 (or any unit prior to the XO-4). By 2020 the existing battery stock for older XOs should be pretty much dead.<br><br>It may be possible to convince Paul Fox or someone to write "compatible" embedded controller firmware which charges multiple types of batteries sub-optimally given the limited EC flash space available. But that would require the more general availability of replacement batteries.<br><br></li><li>Support for i586 CPUs is starting to leave mainline Linux distributions. Note Debian's recent announcement about processors supported in Jessie but not Stretch.<br><br><a href="https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2016/05/msg00001.html">https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2016/05/msg00001.html</a> {The AMD Geode LX in XO-1's is a MediaGX derivative}<br><br>The somewhat odd processor in XO-1s has had a history of throwing illegal instruction errors whenever someone compiled a library incorrectly, or a just-in-time compiler took advantage of an instruction the CPU lacked.<br><br>Other Linux distributions such as RHEL/CentOS have gone 64-bit only.<br><br></li><li>Experiments have been made, but no big push has been made to update XOs beyond Fedora 18, which hit end-of-life in early 2014. This requires kernel work to fix upstreamed drivers (XO-1 & 1.5) & more kernel work to upstream & port non-upstreamed drivers (XO-1.75 & 4).<br><br>The alternative is to port an older systemd forward; potentially an equally annoying headache.<br><br></li><li>By 2020 one would hope Sugar is targeting the latest & most appropriate platform of the day, and not restricting itself to capabilities invented 15 years ago.<br><br></li></ul></div></div><div style="margin-left:40px"><div><br></div></div><blockquote style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex" class="gmail_quote"><div>Fair enough. I've schedule a chat with Leah at OLPC in a couple of weeks, and I'll keep you all posted on what I can find out. </div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>If there is a reason to go to OLPC's Miami office again I don't have an issue with that. I was there in October, and as far as I know I'm still on good terms with them.<br></div><div style="margin-left:40px"><div><br></div></div></div></div>
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