XO-1.75 automatic firmware update triggered by installed operating system build

[greenfeld]

Right now XO-1.75's do not automatically update their firmware when a new OS image is installed.

When appropriate, we should start adding the bootfw package (currently at q4b07?) for XO-1.75 to the 1.75 image build.

[pbrobinson]

I think it would be easier if we create a single srpm package with 3 noarch packages containing the bootfw for the 3 devices. Any thoughts either way?

[Quozl]

@greenfeld, you propose solving this by adding package.

The automatic update is normally (XO-1, XO-1.5) handled by the installed operating system build using the /bootpart/olpc.fth file, which is currently (XO-1.75 os36) provided by olpc-os-builder, but would normally (XO-1, XO-1.5) be provided by bootfw package.

Now that kernels provide /proc/device-tree, the XO-1.75 specific olpc.fth can be reduced significantly. But I'm not sure that is a good idea.

olpc.fth is maintained by the packagers of bootfw*.rpm, which are Richard Smith, Paul Fox, Mitch Bradley, and I, depending on who turns the crank. It's not under version control. I think it shouldn't be part of OpenFirmware or the bootfw*.rpm, but that's the way it is at the moment. I'd like to see that change.

@pbrobinson, unless there's a particularly good reason for changing how the packages are built, I prefer to leave them as they are. I've already changed XO-1.75's bootfw build to noarch, and both q4b06 and q4b07 are noarch. XO-1 and XO-1.5 packages are still i386, but a future release may change them to noarch #11055.

I see no reason why we need to provide .srpm, given that the current .srpm is binary and not source, and a different version of the source is used for the three laptop models. We don't release upstream and then carve three firmware blobs from it. Each is released in turn.

Changed distro component owner to pbrobinson.

Related tickets #11061 (firmware update security)

[Quozl]

os40 contains bootfw package, and /boot/bootfw.zip but olpc.fth is still in need of adjustment.

[pbrobinson]

bootfw-q4b08 is in build OS41

[Quozl]

No, olpc.fth is overwritten by olpc-os-builder, so olpc.fth is still in need of adjustment, and as a result automatic firmware update does not occur.

[Quozl]

(In #11185) I've grabbed an SD card, then

mkfs -t ext4 /dev/mmcblk1p1
mkfs -t ext4 /dev/mmcblk1p2

It easily reproduces.

This is caused by not using the correct olpc.fth ... which would normally pass a different root option to the kernel. Workaround is to edit the /bootpart/olpc.fth file, changing mmcblk0 to mmcblk1. This can be done using emacs in OpenFirmware:

ok emacs int:\boot\olpc.fth

This will be solved when #11146 is also solved.

Not specific to hardware version, is specific to software builds.

[Quozl]

(In #11071) Related #11061 #11146.

[Quozl]

Works on os4, correctly reflashes to Q4B09.