[SoaS] Using SoaS Blueberry to emulate OLPC F11 builds

[Reuben K. Caron]

On Feb 9, 2010, at 4:53 PM, Sebastian Dziallas wrote:

> Martin Langhoff wrote:
>> (I am not sub'd to the soas list -- can a kind admin whitelist me?)
>
> Your e-mail seems to have made it through to the archives, so you  
> should be good. :)
>
>> 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.
>
> Cool, glad to hear this!
>
>> 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:
>
> Mhm, I'm not entirely sure I understand why this would be needed.
>
>>      - 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.
>
> The major issue you'll run into here is that the XO images contain a  
> number of non-Fedora repositories. So attempting to install the  
> packages these repos provide will just fail on SoaS, unless you add  
> them manually.
>
> Also, some of the packages might affect how SoaS works on "normal"  
> machines (thinking of olpc-utils here).
>
>>      - 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?...)
>
> I think the olpc-switch-desktop package in Fedora should do the  
> trick. However, I heard some time ago (might be wrong, though) that  
> it was dependent on olpc-dm, which is in the olpc-utils package and  
> contains the hardcoded olpc username.
>
>>      - 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.
>
> This is certainly a good step to do. I'm not so sure about SSH keys  
> and stuff, which might be another thing you don't necessarily want  
> to copy all over.
>
>>      - Duplicate that exact SoaS disk using the dd command on any  
>> Linux machine
>
> Yeah... well, I'd advise to try a line like this on a modified and  
> rebuilt image: livecd-iso-to-disk --overlay-size-mb xxx /dev/sr0 / 
> dev/sdc1
>
>> Will this work? Is it easy to tell liveusb creator to add a few  
>> rpms...?
>
> It might work. But it could very well break. I'm still curious about  
> the reasoning behind adding all these olpc-* packages. Instead, you  
> might want to consider just adding the @gnome-desktop group and the  
> olpc-switch-desktop package to the SoaS kickstart file and spin a  
> rebuild (after some minor modifications), which you could reasonably  
> well put on the keys, too.

FWIW, I tried almost the same exact process on a machine that I had  
installed Blueberry on by using the zyx-installer. Blueberry was  
installed. I ran yum groupinstall "GNOME Desktop Environment" and then  
yum install olpc-switch-desktop. Rebooted and was auto-logged into the  
Gnome Desktop as SOAS User. Switching desktops did not work, even  
after I created an olpc user. Let me know if there is anything you'd  
like me to try.

>
> I guess it's really about time to think about how to make the  
> customization process easier.
>
> Cheers,
> --Sebastian
>
>> cheers,
>>
>>
>>
>> m