From AlwaysInnovating

Like every release, please follow the reinstall instructions to update your SD card with our latest software.

Contents 1 Multi-OS features 1.1 At boot time 1.2 At runtime 2 First partition configuration 2.1 Creating a custom boot.scr 2.2 Creating a custom ai-initramfs.cmd 3 Android 2.3 Gingerbread 4 AIOS 4.1 Tablet mode 5 Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat 6 ChromiumOS 0.10

Multi-OS features

At boot time

The system will boot by default in Android Gingerbread. However, you can select another OS at boot time. In order to do so, you need to:

• turn on your device
• as soon as you you see the white AI logo appearing on the screen, click the tablet power button: it will make visible a "Loading multi-OS selection screen..." text in the upper left corner.
• then you will get the following screen, on which you can select the OS of your choice with the touchscreen

Additionally, you have the advanced options (like resetting or reinstalling your device) by following this procedure and tap in the bottom left corner when the multi-OS selection text appears, or press escape at that time.

At runtime

When you boot into AIOS, you have the ability to start, run and stop the other operating systems installed on your device. In order to do so, first double-click on the tablet power button to popup the multi-OS manager interface:

Through this interface, you can:

• start an OS by clicking on the OS icon or the OS start button (green arrow)
• switch to a running OS by clicking on the running OS icon
• stop an OS by clicking on the OS stop button (red square)

Also, from any of the running OS, you can, at any time:

• double-click on the tablet power button to popup the multi-OS manager interface
• long-click (2sec) on the tablet power button to switch to the next running OS (switch order is AIOS > Ubuntu > ChromiumOS > Android > AIOS)

Note: to be able to start ChromiumOS from this interface and log into it, you first must have booted into it at least once (see previous section).

For those who want to play and tweak with all this stuff, the interesting files are located in /usr/share/ai-multipleos/* and /usr/share/ai-daemon/button-power.sh

First partition configuration

The first partition of the SD card contains the files needed to boot the device, as well as the kernel. It can actually be configured to (i) change things like screen resolution, console output, or video depth and (ii) select the behavior of the default boot.

Creating a custom boot.scr

This will allow you to change the command line passed to the kernel during the boot. To do so:

• download the create-boot-scr.sh script
• edit it to customize the arguments you're interested in, like for example:
  • console sets the default output for the console; it's tty1 by default, but you can set it up to another ttyX or to serial to get it through a serial connection
  • omapfb.mode sets the screen resolution (1024x600 by default) and the video depth (16 bits by default, the only other possible value on the Touch Book being 24)
  • vram sets the amount of RAM dedicated to the video
• then run the script on an x86 machine to create a boot.scr file
• copy this boot.scr file to your first partition
• sync your card and reboot

Once booted, you can check that your modified arguments have been taken in account with:

cat /proc/cmdline

Creating a custom ai-initramfs.cmd

This will allow you to customize the default behaviour of the multi-OS boot options. To do so:

• edit an empty file named ai-initramfs.cmd, and add the three following lines:

IMAGE=
IMAGE_DEFAULT=
DELAY=

• IMAGE sets the image to boot immediately without showing the multi-OS selection boot screen. You can set it to either ai-os, ubuntu, android, chromium, or advanced. This variable is not set by default, therefore the multi-OS selection boot screen is shown.
• IMAGE_DEFAULT sets the image to boot after that the multi-OS selection boot screen has been shown up for DELAY seconds. The default value of this variable is android.
• DELAY is set by default to 20 and is expressed in seconds, and can be set to any value in seconds.

As an example, the default ai-initramfs.cmd corresponding to the factory behaviour would be:

IMAGE_DEFAULT=android
DELAY=20

• copy this file to your first partition
• sync and reboot

To understand the full process, you can read the AI initrd scripts.

Android 2.3 Gingerbread

The controls are as follow:

• Keyboard commands:
  • Right menu button (between right ctrl and right AI buttons): menu
  • AI button left: home
  • AI button right: search
  • Esc: Back

• Touchpad (or any USB mouse) commands:
  • Left click: click

• AI tablet button:
  • Short press: Back
  • Long press: Home

• Power tablet button:
  • Short press: turn on/off the screen
  • Long press (4sec): hard shutdown

• There are now also soft buttons in the upper right corner, in the status bar. There are always available, to make the use of Android easier in tablet mode.

• To set up your wifi connection:
  • Go to the app panel, and launch the Settings app (you need to scroll down the panel to find the icon)
  • Select "Wireless & Networking", then check the "Wi-Fi" button is checked
  • Select "Wi-Fi settings": you should see the accessible wifi networks around. Select the one you want to connect to, and enter the corresponding wireless parameters. If you don't see any network, just uncheck the "Wi-fi" button and re-check it. You should see your wifi dongle blue LED blinking.

• Location-based apps (such as Navigation or Car Home) require a USB GPS dongle to work.
• Barcode Scanner and Camera apps require a webcam to work.

AIOS

Tablet mode

If you unplug the tablet from the keyboard, you will switch automatically in tablet mode. Whereas in 2010-03.a version, buttons went bigger, it's no longer the case since 2010-09.a, so you won't notice the change. You can check you are in tablet mode when you are entering any text field: the onscreen keyboard will then pop up. Also, in tablet mode your screen is auto-rotating when you are moving the tablet. In netbook mode, it does not.

Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat

You don't require any password to login, as before. To get sudo access, just type

sudo -s

in a terminal (no password required).

ChromiumOS 0.10

You need to have a Gmail account and a working wifi connection to login into the OS.