OpenSolaris and Belenix On XO Laptops
I read that OpenSolaris can be booted from EFI machines such as Sun and Apple machines. Belenix is a LiveCD based on OpenSolaris. Is it possible to boot OpenSolaris from OLPC? Is it possible to use OpenSolaris in OLPC with external USB storage without ZFS? From OpenSolaris discussion board: OLPC now uses LinuxBIOS. Osol can be made to boot with LinuxBIOS: http://blogs.sun.com/szhou/ The OpenSolaris kernel can boot and work in OLPC and 256MB RAM should be enough to run a lightweight GUI. Some stripping of modules are definitely required, including having a minimal Xorg. Keeping a controlled set of apps will be enough to fit Osol onto a small footprint diskspace. There is a lot that won't be required in the OLPC environment.The difficulties I see are having a lightweight filesystem for the Flash storage with compression support. ZFS is a little too heavy for the OLPC application domain. _ = You want FREE web-based email ? = You want your own @qon.lao.net address?? = Then you want LaoNet's WebMail ! = Get it at http://webmail.lao.net !! ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Bundling Commercial XO With Ecomstation
In 1990s IBM released a Windows NT competitor called OS/2 that can run MS-DOS, Windows 3.1 and Windows NT applications (using special method). Now Serenity Systems had bought OS/2 from IBM and market it as Ecomstation. http://www.ecomstation.com Collection of freeware/shareware OS/2 applications: http://hobbes.nmsu.edu/ If Ecomstation can support XO laptops BIOS and still run MS-DOS, OS/2 and Windows 3.1/Windows NT program, IMO this new version of Ecomstation can be bundled with Commercial version of XO laptops sold to developing countries (US, Europe, Japan, Middle East). Perhaps the developing countries version of XO come with bigger keyboards, LCD screens, but use the same motherboards and chipsets as the developed country version. Is the above idea possible? Thank you. _ = You want FREE web-based email ? = You want your own @qon.lao.net address?? = Then you want LaoNet's WebMail ! = Get it at http://webmail.lao.net !! ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
FreeBe, Displaylink
No VGA/EGA/CGA. This is some sort of free VESA BIOS and the author said the source code can be ported to Linux platform: http://www.talula.demon.co.uk/freebe/ Another option is virtual graphics card (VGC) from Displaylink. The actual chipset is located on remote display unit such as Samsung SyncMaster 940UX. http://www.displaylink.com Can the above product be used with public version of OLPC XO laptops? _ = You want FREE web-based email ? = You want your own @qon.lao.net address?? = Then you want LaoNet's WebMail ! = Get it at http://webmail.lao.net !! ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Using 3rd Party Commercial/Free BIOS With XO Laptops
Lack of standard BIOS Because XO Laptops are sold to the public using Buy 2 Get 1, IMO there should be a warning to buyer that the machine does not have standard BIOS and cannot run unmodified Linux, BSD, Haiku or other Operating System. Can the consumer buy additional commercial BIOS from 3rd party or use Free BIOS for OLPC to enable support for standard Linux, BSD, Haiku etc? Can the customer buy the XO laptops with 3rd party BIOS already installed on the hardware, because flashing BIOS is a dangerous operation for newbie users? What kind of BIOS compatible with OLPC, is it Phoenix / Award, American Megatrend, Unified Extensible Firmware (UEFI), GNUFI, U-Boot, OpenBIOS or other BIOS? Thank you. _ = You want FREE web-based email ? = You want your own @qon.lao.net address?? = Then you want LaoNet's WebMail ! = Get it at http://webmail.lao.net !! ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Console Mode, DOS Emulator on OLPC
Booting to console mode / svgalib possible Can someone put a wiki / HOWTO about booting OLPC to console mode, setting up svgalib, SDL, xinit command and xinitrc? Lack of FreeDOS because of BIOS With console mode, IMO it is possible to run DOS Emulator such as DosEMU + FreeDOS or DOSbox with decent speed on OLPC. http://dosemu.sourceforge.net http://dosbox.sourceforge.net 1. There are large number of DOS education application suitable for teacher and students. 2. Most DOS applications are designed for slow PC below 100 MHz. 3. There are many abandonware/freely available 20 years old DOS applications/tools on the Internet, such as TurboC, TurboPascal, TurboBasic etc. DOS Freeware / Shareware applications: Simtel.net: http://www.eunet.bg/simtel.net/msdos/ Garbo.uwasa.fi: ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/ _ = You want FREE web-based email ? = You want your own @qon.lao.net address?? = Then you want LaoNet's WebMail ! = Get it at http://webmail.lao.net !! ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
DOSBox VGA Emulator, SDL, Svgalib
No VGA/EGA/CGA on OLPC According to DOSBox manual: Dosbox emulates the CPU, the sound and graphic cards, and some other stuff, all at the same time. VGA emulation is the most demanding part of dosbox in terms of actual CPU usage DOSBox use SDL (Simple DirectMedia Layer) library for accessing display and sound: http://www.libsdl.org/ SDL use either X Windows or Svgalib on console mode. http://www.svgalib.org/ Svgalib support various graphics adapters from ATI, NVIDIA, Matrox, Intel, etc. Can Svgalib support built-in graphic controller inside AMD Geode on XO laptops? Thank you. _ = You want FREE web-based email ? = You want your own @qon.lao.net address?? = Then you want LaoNet's WebMail ! = Get it at http://webmail.lao.net !! ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Modification of Public OLPC Software
I often use Linux without any X-Windows, but only svgalib: mplayer, links 2.0 browser, mp3blaster, etc. On FreeDOS (Free Disk Operating System), I can use display, arachne, pppd etc. Because OLPC is sold to general public using Buy 2 Get 1 G1G1, is it possible to customize OLPC: 1. Disable internal Flash Drive, and boot from external USB hard disk / external CD-ROM drive. 2. Boot to console mode (svgalib). 3. Install Fedora, Mandriva or other Linux/BSD distro, FreeDOS. Use TWM / IceWM windows manager. Is the above ideas possible? Thank you. _ = You want FREE web-based email ? = You want your own @qon.lao.net address?? = Then you want LaoNet's WebMail ! = Get it at http://webmail.lao.net !! ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
