RaspberryPiBoardTasks

This page lists key functionality missing from Raspberry Pi Foundation's ultra-low-cost (~15UKP or 25USD) Linux computer for teaching computer programming to children, and encourages the community to provide a solution.

The Raspberry Pi Foundation is a UK registered charity (Registration Number 1129409) which exists to promote the study of computer science and related topics, especially at school level, and to put the fun back into learning computing. We expect this computer to have many other applications both in the developed and the developing world.

'''Please note that the Raspberry Pi isn't released yet - this page is a community work in progress in preperation for the launch. Please also nota that we will be setting up a repository for uploading contributions, but this isn't ready yet so please simply use http://pastebin.com or http://dropbox.com and provide a link from this page, until we have something set up'''

It is intended that these tasks will be implemented by the Raspberry Pi community.

OTG Device mode
The idea: A student has damaged or wiped the OS on their SDCard. By plugging two Raspberry Pi's back-to-back using the Mini-AB cable with the white end attached to the working device and a recovery SDcard image in the non-working device, the firmware will allow the non-working unit's SD card to be accessible to the working unit.

The detail: Once both devices are booted, the recovery image runs completely from RAM. The SDcard can be ejected and the damaged or wiped SDcard inserted. The SDcard of the working machine can then be cloned.

The task: The device won’t support device mode out of the box, though we’re using a Synopsys OTG core so the hardware is there and the firmware is open, so it might be possible. I suspect if you forced 5V onto the USB power rail it would boot.

A device driver would need to be written and a recovery image created. A command line tool set will need to be provided to deliver the functionality described above.

mkcard.sh
The idea: A script which partitions and formats the SDcard ready for software.

The detail: BeagleBoard community uses something similar, see http://www.angstrom-distribution.org/demo/beagleboard/ and http://www.xora.org.uk/2009/08/14/omap3-sd-booting/

The task: Write a script to create a FAT32 partition for the GPU firmware and a EXT3 partition for the rootfs.

Some of my past projects use such a script to generate a sdcard. I modified it, so it does only the requested things ( removed the part that installs a MBR and copies files to the card ). It can be found here http://pastebin.com/u9Qpm5n0. ATM the partitons are ~80 MB for ext, rest of the card for FAT32 (can be changed on request).

delay_copy.sh
The idea: A script that copies files from an attached USB flash drive to the SDcard after a delay, allowing the user to unplug the keyboard or mouse and plug in the USB drive.

The detail: See http://www.raspberrypi.org/?page_id=43&mingleforumaction=viewtopic&t=152.0

The task: Write the script. Make it bullet proof.