IRC log for #arm-netbook on 20120408

00:38.44CIA-91rhombus-tech: Ariel master * r653db042f5d7 /allwinner_a10/orders/ebrainte.mdwn:
02:09.47*** join/#arm-netbook hp__ (~hp_@p5B38A298.dip.t-dialin.net)
03:00.19*** join/#arm-netbook QingPei (~qingpei@123.118.97.181)
05:00.46CIA-91rhombus-tech: Derrick master * r258108a77d17 /allwinner_a10/orders/Wockets.mdwn:
05:56.41*** join/#arm-netbook mpthompson (~IceChat77@c-50-131-39-81.hsd1.ca.comcast.net)
06:51.02hnomnemoc?
06:56.41specingHey!
07:14.39*** part/#arm-netbook hno (~hno@squid/developer/hno)
07:14.52*** join/#arm-netbook hno (~hno@squid/developer/hno)
07:14.59hnospecing, hi
11:25.03*** join/#arm-netbook penguin42 (~dg@tu006.demon.co.uk)
12:24.14A0Shedshttp://www.eetimes.com/electronics-products/electronic-product-releases/processors/4370153/US-100-Smart-Phone-Made-in-China-Attracts-Universal-Attention
12:24.35A0Shedsno kidding
13:00.32*** join/#arm-netbook QingPei (~qingpei@123.118.97.181)
13:04.05penguin42is $100 that surprising ? I bought my ZTE Blade for ~£80 last year - that's not far off that
13:28.02A0Shedshttp://www.360buy.com/product/606703.html
13:58.57hnopenguin42, on contract or only the phone+
14:44.42MaDMaLKaVfuck this tegra tablet, I'm not working on it anymore until I get the promised update to see if there is any vulnerability there
14:44.46MaDMaLKaVtime to start with the a1000
14:58.41MaDMaLKaVhno, should I use your github for kernel sources ?
15:30.46penguin42hno: Only the phone
15:32.48penguin42hno: It was locked to one carrier, but they're easy to unlock
15:37.36MaDMaLKaVhey, anyone have those aliexpress coupons at hand to order the usb - ttl adapter ?
16:02.45MaDMaLKaVforget it, found it
16:06.03hnoMaDMaLKaV, my minimal tree do work, but it's very very minimal, not even serial console. Will update the 3.3 tree shortly. Been busy with the kids all day today.
16:07.07hnobut all you need to change for the 3.3 tree to boot to userspace is to remove ARM_VIC from the SUN4I machine description in arch/arm/Kconfig
16:07.46hnothere is some more changes in the minimal tree that needs to get merged for kernel to really work.
16:08.09hnobut all depends a bit on what you want to do today.
16:09.43hnoMaDMaLKaV, is the tegra tablet bootloader locked? Tegra2 is otherwise very well supported in mainline kernel
16:14.04MaDMaLKaVyeah, the bootloader have some kind of signature checking preventing us for booting anything but the factory's updates, we are reciving some new updates soon and hope they get them to remove the checks
16:14.33MaDMaLKaVbut as I said, fuck it, I want to play with A10, not with tegra, I was just trying to help with that but I have already done all I'm capable of
16:14.52MaDMaLKaVI want mele running XBMC, anything else is uninteresting
16:14.53MaDMaLKaVXD
16:31.22hnoMaDMaLKaV, ok. If you want something that just works no matter it's shape then go for the 2.6.36 kernel.
16:38.55hnofor XBMC I think you will need to integrate the A10 media player library somehow even if somewhat incompatible due to XMBC being GPL licensed.
16:40.26hnobut you ware very welcome to dig into the later kernels if intereseted. But don't expect them to just work yet..
16:43.22MaDMaLKaVok, thanks for the info
16:49.45MaDMaLKaVyou sure there will be license problems with the libraries? AFAIK the raspberry pi also doesn't have gpl video libraries but there is a xbmc port
16:54.43GumbootPresumably you don't force a closed-source library to be open source simply by linking GPL code against it.
16:56.39zenitraMis there *any* kind of license set for the player library?
17:01.16MaDMaLKaVhope the lima project for reverse engineering the mali driver gives us some useable code in the non distant future
17:16.50penguin42Gumboot: It's messy - I don't understand all the details; but if it's your closed source code that you released linking GPL code against it then you're probably breaking the GPLs code copyright
17:19.48hp__http://www.aliexpress.com/product-fm/546571245-Mele-A2000-TV-box-Allwinner-A10-hackable-device-wholesalers.html?biz_type=null&url_type=wto_clc_pic&productId=546571245&biz_type=sitePromo_wto_buyer360_clc&crm_mtn_tracelog_plan_id=497803776&crm_mtn_tracelog_task_id=8463599&crm_mtn_tracelog_log_id=1369770651
17:20.02hp__$75 for the mele2000 with larger flash :)
17:35.46hnoMaDMaLKaV, you can't redistribute XMBC modified to use the library in binary form.
17:36.29hnoGumboot, correct. But you need to fulfill the GPL license on the GPL parts. Not all combinations is possible.
17:37.00hnoMaDMaLKaV, lima is about th GPU for 3D rendering. Won't help XMBC much.
17:37.45hnoIn addition to the MALI GPU there is also a 2D graphics processor and a media processor in the A10.
17:41.03hnopenguin42, it does not matter who have the copyright on the closed parts. You can't distribute a GPL program linked to parts with incompatible licenses, even if they all are Open Source. Closed libraries without source are by definition incompatible no matter what their license says.
17:43.14penguin42hno: True
17:44.04MaDMaLKaVhno, I thought xbmc could use opengl to render the videos, thus avoiding the problem of linking to conflicting libraries
17:45.49MaDMaLKaVand I thought that there is no opengl support for mali in lunux currently as it is not being available with the closed source drivers, just in android
18:04.17MaDMaLKaVand, anyway, I still have to figure what legal trick they did with the raspberry pi then, as all the video and gpu related stuff is closed source also AFAIK
18:10.33hnoMaDMaLKaV, the interface to the Raspberry Pi GPU is public I think. The GPU code itself is not but is separate from everything else running on it's own CPU (the GPU) so it's not a big problem.
18:12.24MaDMaLKaVI see
18:14.34MaDMaLKaVat this pace, universities will have to put some mandatory law courses on computer programming degrees
18:15.00hnoBut the CPU used in Raspberry Pi is annoying in another perspective related to this. There the main CPU is bootstrapped by the GPU so you can't build a free Raspberry Pi solution even if you are not interested in the GPU parts as you can not boot wihout ghe GPU firmware.
18:16.13hnoMaDMaLKaV, Yes, any serious computer sience programs these days should include 10 weeks introduction to licensing, copyright, patents and trademarks I think.
18:17.55hnowhich would heat up the debate some orders of magnitude I think. Today most are ignorant of the unholy mess there is.
18:19.39MaDMaLKaVso first thing I must try before trying to port xbmc is see how to do it legally. uncool but necesary
18:21.42penguin42well, one interesting question is how close you can get to the performance required completely in software without acceleration
18:22.25penguin42then whether the MALI stuff has the potential to be of any use (even if not being intended for video stuff)
18:30.36MaDMaLKaVlooking at the a10 video git repository, can't find any single reference to any kind of software license
18:31.20penguin42then you have to assume you don't have the permission to do anything with it
18:31.29MaDMaLKaVyeah
18:31.29GumbootWhy not use the parts dedicated to the purpose?
18:34.24GumbootWhat is the media processor, anyway?
18:35.33MaDMaLKaVseems like there is licensing problems with the software managing the video decoder
18:36.47penguin42Has anyone asked Allwinner if they can just tell us the interface?
18:37.54GumbootWhose IP is it?
18:38.20penguin42dunno
18:38.41GumbootI could find out the easy way, but then I have to invest a lot more effort finding out if I'm allowed to tell anybody, so I don't want to look.
18:41.16GumbootMight be worth trawling through the official firmwares for modules and copyright notices showing where the IP came from, then working on finding documentation for the relevant components through more direct means, rather than stressing Allwinner's NDAs.
18:41.53GumbootWell, stressing Allwinner's lawyers over the NDAs they've signed.
18:44.07penguin42it might be worth the straight question of whether or not it is even under NDA an if so who with if they can say
18:57.43MaDMaLKaVmotogp starting, bbl
18:58.49specingWhere is tom?
18:59.09specingIs he evading questions?
19:15.18*** join/#arm-netbook harpal (~chatzilla@117.196.74.190)
19:16.22harpalI bought a702c tablet, I got one img file and key file to update it. But Is is possible to extract that firmware .img file and modify it and repack it?
19:20.06specing?
19:26.26harpalspecing: I read about people talking about unpacking and packing android img file. on this channel http://ibot.rikers.org/%23arm-netbook/20120311.html.gz
19:26.42harpalSo I asked question about unpacking img file.
19:28.55specingDo you have root access on it?
19:29.14specingIf you do, you can do pretty much anything
19:30.02hnospecing, Tom have been on vacation. Back yesterday I think.
19:31.32hnoharpal, there is a leaked windows tool for unpacking firmware files.
19:31.58harpalhno: are you talking about AFPTool.exe ?
19:32.17hnonot sure what it's name is.
19:34.11harpalok, I tried AFPTool.exe to unpack file but its showing me failed. so not able to extract img file.
19:41.31hnoI think it's just called unimg.
19:56.20*** join/#arm-netbook eebrah (~Ibrahim_K@212.49.88.35)
20:01.23hnoharpal, http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1490886&page=2
20:02.20hnohttp://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=22512903&postcount=17 to be exact.
20:19.06harpalhno: Thanks a lot. I got files extracted, but dont know what are files inside. it shows me lots of files, like RFSFAT16_SYSTEM_000000000, RFSFAT16_VBOOT_0000000000
20:20.18hnoharpal, read the rest of the thread.
20:27.44zenitraMharpal: most of them are vfat or ext4 partition. you can mount them on linux
20:27.52zenitraMusing mount -o loop <file>
20:28.06zenitraMmount -o loop <file> <place to mount>
20:28.12harpalzenitraM: ok
20:38.31harpalzenitraM: I tried mounting using -o loop but it says you must specify the file system type.
20:38.51harpalso I think its different file.
20:38.59zenitraMtry adding: -t vfat or -t msdos
20:39.08zenitraMnot all of them are mountable
20:39.18zenitraMthe FS are the bigger ones
20:40.14penguin42harpal: what does   file    say about the file?
20:40.24harpalIt says wrong fs type
20:40.33harpalfile says : data
20:40.53harpalfile size is 214M
20:41.41hnoharpal, what is the file named?
20:42.38harpalhno: file name is RFSFAT16_SYSTEM_000000000
20:43.16penguin42that's one heck of a name
20:44.08hnopenguin42, it's parts of the firmware image, not actual file names.
20:57.43zenitraMharpal: mount -t ext4 -o loop RFSFAT16_SYSTEM_00000000 /mnt/whatever
21:00.19harpalzenitraM: still same error  :(
21:00.55harpaldmesg says EXT4-fs (loop0): VFS: Can't find ext4 filesystem
21:01.12zenitraMtry ext3 or ext2
21:02.20harpalzenitraM: both failing.
21:02.53zenitraMmmm i think i mounted them that way
21:02.55zenitraMtry with another image
21:03.00zenitraMfile*
21:03.07harpalas this thread http://www.slatedroid.com/topic/28942-50-to-the-first-person-to-figure-this-out/ says its ext4 image
21:06.54hnoharpal, do the file actually contain anything?
21:08.50harpalfile size is 214M so its mail file which holds system directory on android side
21:08.57harpal*main
21:21.01harpalI think files are encrypted.
21:34.20hnounimg decrypts.
21:34.47hnoi think.
21:51.31zenitraMit should be decrypted
21:56.54harpalits ics, So Its different file system. Need to use simg2img to easily make it .img file.
21:57.07harpalhttp://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1081239
22:07.07zenitraMmmm
22:07.09zenitraMtry something
22:07.21zenitraMif you have a device running that firmware
22:07.29zenitraMrun "busybox mount" on the device terminal
22:07.36zenitraMby using adb or terminal emulator from the market
22:07.45zenitraMthat should show what fs type it really i
22:07.45zenitraMs
22:11.46harpalzenitraM: simg2img did the trick ;)
22:11.51zenitraMnice :)
22:12.01harpalthat is actually sparce-image
22:33.20hnoharpal, you mean sparse?
22:35.01harpalohh ya, sparse
22:37.47hnoWhat firmware are you looking into?
22:39.19hnomnemoc, my lnux-3.3-sun4i tree should now work fine I think. Merged over the changes from my -minimal experiment.
22:44.21*** join/#arm-netbook MaDMaLKaV (~IceChat9@188.86.253.69)
22:58.58*** join/#arm-netbook A0Sheds (~ly@unaffiliated/l84supper)
23:01.40harpalhno: I have firmware file name as 4.0-a721.img device 702c

Generated by irclog2html.pl Modified by Tim Riker to work with infobot.