Build system
We use olpc-os-builder, a tool used by OLPC to create official and customized system images. Our version contains local customizations specific to Dextrose and some patches that should be upstreamed.
Build host requirements
The olpc-os-builder machinery has been used successfully with systems running Fedora 11 i386 through Fedora 13 x86_64.
What the host system runs shouldn't matter much, because all the work is being done in a chroot environment, but olpc-os-builder is known to fail on Ubuntu due to a missing dependency.
How to create a build
- Checkout our local tree:
git clone git://git.sugarlabs.org/dextrose/mainline.git
- One time preparation
yum upgrade yum install libtomcrypt-devel bitfrost make gcc mtd-utils make
- Build:
time sudo ./osbuilder.py examples/f11-xo1-py.ini
- Wait 15 minutes
- Serve hot
Signing
- Put the 3 signing keys somewhere:
bernie@robbie:~$ ll src/olpc/keys/ -rw-------. 1 bernie bernie 1,2K Feb 5 2009 pyo1.private -rw-------. 1 bernie bernie 270 Feb 5 2009 pyo1.public -rw-------. 1 bernie bernie 1,2K Feb 5 2009 pys1.private -rw-------. 1 bernie bernie 270 Feb 5 2009 pys1.public -rw-------. 1 bernie bernie 1,2K Feb 5 2009 pyw1.private -rw-------. 1 bernie bernie 270 Feb 5 2009 pyw1.public
- Make sure the keys are NOT world-readable
- Edit the paths in the [signing] section of your ini file (e.g. examples/f11-0.88-xo1-py.ini
Publishing the images
Signed builds should be published only if they correctly implement the OLPC anti-theft system). Signing does not have anything to do with quality or endorsement (i.e. signed builds are not necessarily bug-free or supported).
Customizing the build
The topic of is too vast to discuss in detail here. Start by reading README in the olpc-os-builder tree. Then, as needed, read the various README files contained in the modules directory.
Being a Build Master involves knowledge of many workflows, including:
- Building Sugar in sugar-jhbuild.
- Dealing with yum and rpm.
- Understanding the Fedora packaging workflow and conventions.
- Creating yum package repositories with [1].
- Uploading activities to [2].
- General understanding of the Linux system plumbing infrastructure: kernel,
udev, dbus, DeviceKit, NetworkManager, Xorg...
- Flashing laptops and debugging any problems
- Interaction with the Sugar and OLPC community to solve issues and minimize our divergence from the official builds.
Upstream
Our upstream code comes from dev.laptop.org:
git remote add olpc git://dev.laptop.org/projects/olpc-os-builder git fetch olpc git log olpc/master
Building custom OLPC kernels
$ git clone http://dev.laptop.org/git/olpc-2.6/ $ cd olpc-2.6 $ setarch i386 make ARCH=i386 xo_1-kernel-rpm