[SoaS] Using SoaS Blueberry to emulate OLPC F11 builds

[Martin Langhoff]

(I am not sub'd to the soas list -- can a kind admin whitelist me?)

Hi OLPC, SoaS folks,

we have a deployment that wants to use SoaS for early teacher training
before they have (enough) XOs in their hands.

Besides the obvious indications that they pre-test the hw they'll run
it on, and the "shut down SoaS carefully" recommendation, I drafted a
plan for them to make Blueberry more like OLPC's F11:

     - Take a XO (1 or 1.5) running the OLPC F11 image, get the
package list with `rpm -qa | sort > todos-los-paquetes.lista`

     - Get a box of USB sticks -- all same make, model & size.

     - On one of the USB sticks, create a SoaS with a generous overlay.

     - Start up SoaS on a machine with internet connection

     - Get the package list on SoaS with the same command

     - Compare the 2 lists, and on the SoaS side install anything that
is missing (using yum)  Skip the kernel package.

     - Restart the machine with SoaS to check that now you have the
"swtich to gnome" option in the control panel, and the option to
return to Sugar on the Gnome desktop. (Will this Just Work, or did we
hardcode /home/olpc or the olpc uid?...)

     - Once the SoaS works as expected, restart it, switch to a VT,
and as the root user delete /home/liveuser/.sugar and then use the
command  `halt` to shut down the system.

     - Duplicate that exact SoaS disk using the dd command on any Linux machine

Will this work? Is it easy to tell liveusb creator to add a few rpms...?

cheers,



m
-- 
 martin.langhoff at gmail.com
 martin at laptop.org -- School Server Architect
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