Arch on OLPC XO

cschep · 2008-02-14 19:59:59

Hey guys,

I participated in the get one give one thingy that OLPC did back in November and I've had my XO for a while. It's fun to tinker on, very cool hardware! I haven't gotten much real use out of, but I'm glad some kid somewhere has one to enjoy.

I recently stumbled upon a post about someone putting CRUX on their XO, and it sounded like a cool idea to try Arch on mine.

Also, those eee pc zealots have a huge thread! Those machines look sharp! I quite wish I had one instead of the XO, I just feel like I'd get more use out of one, but it's hard to feel bad about supporting some cool education programs.

Anyway, any other XO owners out there? any that have tried Arch? I'm stuck at work now, just digging through what it might take to give this a shot tonight, I think it would be cool!

If I make any progress at all, I'll throw the info on a wiki page.

elasticdog · 2008-02-15 21:54:32

I've got one, and haven't had much of a chance to mess with it either. I think the hardware is incredibly cool, and unfortunately I think there is so much customization for it specifically, that putting a different OS or distro on it might degrade the performance, but who knows. I'd definitely be interesting in hearing your progress if you get anything up and running!

lilsirecho · 2008-02-15 22:33:00

Remember, the system must be i686 compatible.....

k.mandla · 2008-02-15 22:54:49

The Crux machine was mine, probably. I don't think Arch will do it; the Geode identifies itself an i586 and that's not something Arch likes. That was the reason I put Crux on it; I could build the system and compile a 586-friendly kernel to get the rest of the machine working.

Performance with Crux is pretty good though -- I have 3D acceleration (which is terribly slow, but working), sound, mouse and touchpad, USB-to-LAN, streaming audio, and so forth. My only real complaint, aside from the problems I need to iron out, would just be overall system speed. It's still running at 430Mhz, no matter what you do to it.

I'll be honest though and say I didn't bother trying Arch because I just assumed it wouldn't work. If anyone has any ideas I'm open to suggestions.

Last edited by k.mandla (2008-02-15 23:00:17)

k.mandla · 2008-02-17 23:52:51

Okay, I was wrong. It can be done, basically by splicing core OLPC components into an Arch installation. You end up booting the OLPC kernel, etc., but the software and system are all Arch.

I'm surprised, confused and pleased all at once. It's not perfect, but it does work.

cschep · 2008-02-18 01:41:29

Wow, that's cool!

splicing components sounds a bit over my head, I got screwed trying to make my stupid usb stick bootable. I followed the wiki entry a few times through, and once I finally got it booting, it would come up with syslinux, but i'd hit enter and there would be "no kernel found" ... so... yeah.

Anyway, that's very cool. If they've got a kernel built for it already, no reason not to just use that eh?

cheers!

k.mandla · 2008-02-19 06:02:41

Well, I said splicing, but it's really just copying. Splicing was probably a bad choice of words there. If you can work a terminal you can set that up. And as everybody knows, Arch users are rabid terminal fans.

cschep · 2008-07-15 21:36:38

Hey I don't know how many people are interested in this or not, but I just read a bit of the CHANGELOG for the latest kernel (2.6.26) and it looks like they added support for the OLPC hardware.

I wonder, does this make it possible to run arch on the XO without having to grab the kernel that's already on there?

Just curious, thanks!

Arch Linux

#1 2008-02-14 19:59:59

Arch on OLPC XO

#2 2008-02-15 21:54:32

Re: Arch on OLPC XO

#3 2008-02-15 22:33:00

Re: Arch on OLPC XO

#4 2008-02-15 22:54:49

Re: Arch on OLPC XO

#5 2008-02-17 23:52:51

Re: Arch on OLPC XO

#6 2008-02-18 01:41:29

Re: Arch on OLPC XO

#7 2008-02-19 06:02:41

Re: Arch on OLPC XO

#8 2008-07-15 21:36:38

Re: Arch on OLPC XO

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