Sugar on a Stick/Installation/OLPC

Do you have an OLPC XO-1?

There are three main options for OLPC XO users: (1) olpc-update; (2) install Sugar on a Stick on the internal NAND; and (3) Sugar on a Stick on an SD card.

Update to the latest Sugar build

You run olpc-update from the Terminal activity, e.g.,:

sudo olpc-update 767

where 767 is the latest stable release from OLPC (OLPC 8.2, Sugar 0.82)

Details regarding the 8.2.1 release will be available in late March or early April.

More details can be found here.

Install the Sugar on a Stick image

(Requires a developer key for your OLPC-XO-1 and access to a GNU/Linux computer)

Also requires a recent OFW version, Q2E28 has been reported as working. Instructions for updating your firmware.

WARNING: this will overwrite all data on your OLPC-XO-1 NAND!!

On a Fedora10 system:

sudo yum -y install crcimg mtd-utils

On Debian or Ubuntu:

sudo apt-get install mtd-utils

crcimg is not packaged for Debian so you'll have to build it:

wget http://dev.laptop.org/~mstone/releases/SOURCES/crcimg-1.1.tar.bz2
tar xvf crcimg-1.1.tar.bz2
sudo make -f Makefile.build install

Next:

wget http://dev.laptop.org/~cjb/rawhide-xo/livecd-iso-to-xo.sh
wget Template:SoaSiso

run this command (or something similar depending on the version number of your .iso file)

sudo sh livecd-iso-to-xo.sh Soas-200903051021.iso Soas-200903051021.img

and then copy Soas-200903051021.img and Soas-200903051021.crc to a USB key or SD card

On the OLPC-XO-1, boot with the USB key plugged in and the four game keys press to get to the OK prompt in Open Firmware (OFW).

Type the following commands:

disable-security
copy-nand u:\Soas-200903051021.img

Note: depending upon the file system on your USB key, the names maybe truncated:

dir u:\
copy-nand u:\SOAS-2~1.img

You should see an animation of the blocks being written to the NAND. When it is complete, you will be back at the OK prompt. Type:

reboot

and the OLPC-XO-1 will reboot and you should be running Sugar 0.84.

Run Sugar on a Stick from an SD card or external USB

(Requires a developer key for your OLPC-XO-1 and access to a Fedora computer)

On Fedora:

wget Template:SoaSiso

sudo yum install livecd-tools

sudo livecd-iso-to-disk --format --xo --xo-no-home Soas-200903051021.iso /dev/sdX1

where /dev/sdX1 is the device associated with your removable media.

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