Moblin Image Creator for Ubuntu 9.04

Although MIC1 is deprecated and replaced by MIC2, I think it is still the best Ubuntu image customization tool. It is pity to throw it away. I would like to resume the development and extend it to build image for latest Ubuntu version like 9.04 . The first prototype is ready. It could build image for Ubuntu 9.04. The source code is available in my github account.

Reference:

• Moblin Image Creator for EeePC

Backported Qt 4.5.2 and Qt Creator 1.1.0 to Ubuntu Hardy

The Ubuntu hardy's official repository only support QT 4.4 , but I am now doing QT 4.5-based development on my X60 notebook with Ubuntu hardy. I have backported QT 4.5.2 and Qt Creator 1.1.0 from karmic to hardy. The packages has been pushed to Launchpad PPA. If you also need it , you may add the following lines to your /etc/apt/sources.list

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/benlau/hardy-backport-qt/ubuntu hardy main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/benlau/hardy-backport-qt/ubuntu hardy main

More packages from : hardy-backport-qt

Running OLPC 8.2 in VirtualBox

It is well known that OLPC build 767 (8.2) can not be run in VirtalBox / VMWare due to the absent of 3Dnow instruction in the virtual machine. 3DNow is an extension to the x86 instruction developed by AMD. As VirtualBox / VMWare don't have any plan to support 3DNow instruction , it need to customize the OLPC image by ourself in order to run on those platform.

The method is not available in wiki.laptop.org , therefore , I have to figure out by myself. And it is the result:

(The instruction is not completed, because I am not familiar with Fedora. Please feel free to comment and suggest improve method. Soon it is ready , I will post to wiki.laptop.org )

Preparation:

1. Follow the instruction Virtual Box - OLPC
   
1. Download the ext3 image
2. Setup the Virtual Machine
3. Convert the ext3 image by using the "VBoxManage convertd" command
2. Download Ubuntu Live Image (e.g 8.10)
   

Boot the virtual machine with the Ubuntu Live Image.

1. Mount OLPCRoot by using the menu : Places -> OLPCRoot

2. Open Terminal , run the command below:

mount -t none /dev /media/OLPC/dev -o bind
cp /etc/resolv.conf /media/OLPCRoot/etc/resolv.conf
chroot /media/OLPCRoot
mount /proc
mount /sys

3. Now you are under a chroot environment , you need to edit few files and install few packages:

3.1 Edit /etc/yum.repos.d/fedora.repo

Found the line "include=file:///etc/yum/olpc-exclude" and comment it

3.2 Install standard kernel :

yum -y install yum-allowdowngrade

yum --allow-downgrade -y install kernel.i686

3.3 Add the new kernel config to /boot/grub/grub.conf

title Standard Fedora Kernel
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.25-14.fc9.i686 ro vga=0x317 video=vesafb:ypan sellinux=0 console=ttyS0,115200 console=tty0 emu
initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.25-14.fc9.i686.img

3.4 Reboot the Virtual Machine , and remove the LiveCD iso image. Now VirtualBox should be able to boot OLPC 8.2

Known Issue:

1. USB auto mount is working , but the mounted drive can not be shown in Journal