SoaS Blueberry Instructions


For Windows Users

Persons using PCs running Windows have two options for creating a Sugar/Blueberry USB flash drive:

Option #1: Use LiveUSB Creator from within Windows to create a Sugar-on-a-Stick Live USB with a compressed filesystem.
  1. Download the latest version of the Fedora LiveUSB Creator from FedoraHosted here.
  2. Plug a blank target USB flash drive (or SD Card) into your computer (1GB or greater). (See Cautions with using Live USB regarding flash drive size.)
  3. Launch LiveUSB Creator.
  4. Select Sugar on a Stick v2 Blueberry in the drop-down menu on the upper-right side to download the liveUSB disk image.
  5. Adjust the Persistent Storage slider. This enables you to save the child's work in Sugar onto the device.
  6. Select your flash drive as the target and click the Create Live USB button.
  7. Wait for the process to finish, then close the LiveUSB Creator program.
  8. Stop your flash drive using the Safely Remove Hardware dialog and eject it.
Option #2: (ADVANCED USERS ONLY) Create a bootable Sugar/Blueberry USB flash drive that does not have a compressed filesystem. This option requires at least a 4GB drive.
WARNING: MAKING A MISTAKE IN THIS PROCEDURE COULD WIPE YOUR PC'S HARD DISK!!!!
  1. In Windows, download the latest version of the Live CD image, and burn the image to a CD.
  2. Follow the instructions here to create the bootable Sugar/Blueberry USB flash drive by (i) booting the PC into Sugar with the CD and (ii) running ZyX-LiveInstaller within the Terminal activity. You will also need a spare, blank (or erasable) USB flash drive -- preferably manufactured by a different manufacturer than the target USB -- to use as a swap drive during the procedure. Any data on the swap drive will be wiped.

Notes:

  • If you do Option #1 often, you may want to download the Blueberry CD Image once. Then, when it comes to create the flash drive, hit the Browse button and select the downloaded file rather than selecting "Blueberry" from the menu as above.
  • Option #1 creates an SoaS that cannot detect when its drive space eventually runs out, causing stick failure.
  • Option #2 creates a more-robust, more-stable drive whose free space can be monitored using the Terminal activity. Non-compressed SoaS drives, however, are not bootable with a boot helper CD.

For GNU/Linux Users

1-)Linux Users will use a slightly different approach than Windows Users to ensure maximum compatibility with different distributions. Please follow the instructions carefully to ensure your data is preserved.

If you are a Fedora User, run the following command:

yum install liveusb-creator

Then download soas-2-blueberry.iso and select it by using the Browse button. You can check to make sure that the .iso downloaded properly by comparing the sha1sum to the one here:[1](sha1sum)

sha1sum soas-2-blueberry.iso
8022b68433295f12fbfffa66bf49205851a6a1e0 
  • Launch LiveUSB Creator and follow the instructions above.

2-)If you use any other distribution, download the image-writer tool from here and the live image from here.

This solution will not create a persistent storage overlay

  • Open a terminal and become root, either by using su or sudo.
  • Enter the following command: ./image-writer soas-2-blueberry.iso
  • WARNING: If you proceed here, your flash drive will be wiped!
  • The script will output a device name; confirm that it matches with your flash drive.
  • You will be notified once the process has finished.

3-)zyx-liveinstaller:[2]

4-)Unsupported instructions for creating a key with persistent storage for Blueberry: [3] and on other distributions are available here:[4]

For Mac OS X Users

Check that you have an Intel processor, and not a PowerPC (PPC) G3, G4, or G5 processor Apple Macintosh. You can do that by selecting About This Mac from the Apple menu. The window that appears must have "Intel" mentioned in the Processor section. SoaS is only available for Mac with Intel processors.

You may be able to prepare your flash drive on a Mac, but depending on the generation of the Mac, you may need to use another computer to test whether the prepared flash drive works.

  • Download the Sugar on a Stick v2 Blueberry liveUSB image from here: http://download.sugarlabs.org/soas/releases/soas-2-blueberry.iso
  • Verify the file was downloaded properly. Open the Terminal application and calculate its SHA-1 checksum:
    • Mac OS version ≥10.6 $ shasum ~/Downloads/soas-2-blueberry.iso
    • Mac OS version ≤10.5 $ openssl sha1 ~/Downloads/soas-2-blueberry.iso
    • Compare the result to the string shown here.
8022b68433295f12fbfffa66bf49205851a6a1e0
  • Download our image-writer tool for Mac from here: http://download.sugarlabs.org/soas/releases/image-writer-mac
  • Insert the flash drive you wish to place SoaS on. WARNING: your flash drive will be wiped in the next step! All partitions will be erased.
  • Run the following command in Terminal: cd Downloads; python image-writer-mac soas-2-blueberry.iso
  • Answer any questions carefully.
  • Proceed as stated in the instructions for Linux Users.

Boot Helper

If your machine doesn't support booting from USB devices, then download the soas-2-boot.iso and burn it to a CD. ImgBurn is a free Windows application to do so, in case your current computer does not come with such a software.

  • Use the Windows Explorer to name your USB flash drive FEDORA (from the Properties dialog for your device), as otherwise, it won't be recognized by the boot-helper CD.
  • Put both the boot-helper CD and the USB flash drive in your computer and let it boot from the CD.

If your boot hangs, you may need to modify the boot command by appending:

selinux=0

You do this by interrupting the Helper CD boot by hitting the Esc key once the initial splash-screen appears. You should see a list of four boot options. At this point, hit the Tab key. The command line should appear. Add selinix=0 to the end of the line and hit Return (or Enter). The boot should proceed from here as normal.