[Sugar-devel] [SoaS] Booting SoaS on a PC and on an XO with the same stick (Yes, it can be done)

[Ton van Overbeek]

While browsing the liveusb-creator source on
https://fedorahosted.org/liveusb-creator/browser
I noticed that it should be possible to boot SoaS directly on the XO.
So I tried with the Soas-200903011706.iso image using liveusb-creator
3.2 on Windows.

I had to start from the commandline in order to pass in the needed -x
(or --xo) option. This option
copies the boot/olpc.fth forth file on the stick which the XO firmware
needs for booting.
However using this stick, the boot on the XO failed. Turned out there
were a few too many
backslashes in the olpc.fth file. (diffs in attached olpc.fth.diff file).
Removing them made the boot succeed, but no good X configuration for the XO.
So I created /etc/X11/xorg.conf from the XO specific one in
/etc/rc.d/init.d/livesys-late
(See http://git.sugarlabs.org/projects/soas/repos/mainline/blobs/master/soas-base.ks).
I have not investigated while it was not created in the first place,
but this stick was first booted
on my Dell Precision M60 laptop and later on the XO.
Anyway, with the xorg.conf in place it booted properly into Sugar on
both the XO and my Dell
laptop. No details yet about what works and what does not on the XO,
but WiFi seems to work.

I suggest to update liveusb-creator to have the '-x' option turned on
by default in both the
windows and fedora versions, at least for the one  advertised on
http://sugarlabs.org/go/Sugar_on_a_Stick/Installation.
By the way, why don't we use liveusb-creator for Linux on that page ???

The olpc.fth file in liveusb-creator should be fixed (remove the
extraneous backslashes).
My XO firmware is Q2E18.

Also somehow the xorg.conf needed for the XO should be created
automatically on the XO.
I will try to track down why it did not for me.

I hope this is useful info for the SoaS project.

Ton van Overbeek
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