[SoaS] Strawberry usage issues (was: Re: Question 85331)

[Martin Dengler]

On Thu, Oct 22, 2009 at 02:24:43PM -0400, Petitour at earthlink.net wrote:
> Hello Martin

> Thank you for your reply to question 85331. I didn't know how to get  
> back to answer you on the launchpad

Just edit / update the bug - it emails people / updates them in a way
that they can configure to be best for them (perhaps some people might
prefer RSS feeds...*shrug*).

> but I found your email instead.Please excuse me for using it to
> answer your question if I am still having problems with Sugar on a
> Stick.

Sure - but emailing soas at lists.sugarlabs.org is much better, since
more people will see your email and potentially help out.

> My system is a Vista Home premium service pack 2 on a Sony PC. BIOS
> Changed to boot from a USB flash drive.

> 1. I downloaded SOAS-1-Strawberry.Iso and burned the image to a
> "DVD".  The space required for the files is more than 1GB and won't
> fit on a standard CD nor could I put them on a 1 GB USB flash drive
> or stick as its called. I copied the files to a 2 GB USB stick.

We'd like to get it down below 1GB / to CD size, but it's not there
yet.


> 2. The DVD works as reported but the stick doesn't. If I start the
> PC with the stick I get a message "Remove disks or other
> media. Press any key to start." If I have the USB stick in place
> with the helper disk, I get a message " Warning: cannot find root
> file system etc." Just for curiosity, I started the system with the
> stick in place and after the remove message popped up, I started the
> helper disk and the USB stick woke up and the system booted up
> perfectly.

So if you burn it to a DVD it's fine but if you then copy those files
to a pre-formatted USB stick it doesn't?  That's expected - booting
requires more than the files that one can copy with simple commands.

> 3. Next I checked if I could log on to my secured network. That
> didn't work. I know its not a driver issue on my system since I
> downloaded Linux from Fedora to check if I could log on to my
> network. It worked fine and even remembered to log on automatically
> when I restarted it.  It's a neat toy!

Hmm.  It could be a few issues (either SoaS driver selection or Sugar
UI or...).  Perhaps someone can point to a good next step to take
here.

> 4. Next I logged on to an unsecured node successfully and downloaded
> an activity to see if it would save it. Saving does not work. It
> neither saved the log on name to Sugar nor the activity I
> downloaded.  The Journal shows that the Sugar Stick has 767 MB free
> but I don't believe the system set the persistent storage parameter.

I assume you're booting from the USB stick but with the DVD to "help"
the boot process as you mentioned in point #2 above, right?  That sort
of thing makes all the difference.  Perhaps someone can identify what
you could do / they would change in the instructions to help with
this.


> 5. I also tried to setup Sugar using Fedora Live USB Creator several
> times but each time I tried to boot the new Stick, a message
> "Warning:canot find root file system"etc. popped up. The fourth time
> I ran the USB Creator, it worked and I set the persistent storage to
> roughly 750 and finally had a working Sugar Stick that boots up. It
> works great except for logging on to a secure network. That still
> doesn't work.

So the exact same (except the different persistent storage size)
process failed to create a bootable stick three times and then
succeeded the fourth?  Thanks for sharing - I think that's quite
rubbish but am not familiar enough with these types of problems to
suggest much of anything, I'm afraid.

> 6. I copied the files on this properly working stick to another
> stick to give it to one of my grand kids.The new stick no longer has
> the activities I downloaded and has the same problem as item 2
> above. It does not boot up, will not save anything, and will not
> connect to a secure network. Is there a way to copy my working stick
> to another stick and have it mirror what I had before?

We'd like to get better with this, but basically no (since "just
copying" has the problem you mentioned here and in #2).  You should
create another stick with the LiveUSB creator and tweak it (again)
:(.  I guess the hopelessly chipper would suggest that you could use
that process as an introduce-Sugar opportunity for your grand kid(s),
but I'm not one of those.  If there is a glaring omission from the
build we should of course add it, but if it's a customisation you can
imagine many people doing it'd be useful to mention that and perhaps
it can be made easier in the future.

> Sorry to bother you with these issues

Feedback is great - thanks for taking the time to write it up.

> Any help in resolving these issues would be greatly appreciated.

I hope those more au fait with these issues can be more helpful than
I.

> Regards, Rudy Rubin

Martin


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