A Thread for Vicinc's Device

[vicinc]

I am trying to replacate your process. From where you took ramdisk.maint.gz.crc and ramdisk.android.gz.crc golden or ermine?
they are different size.

[perldude69]

I used the Golden update.zip for everything. When I ogt my PE working again, I upgraded to Ermine and then Allmine.

[vicinc]

it looka like i have to set an ubuntu machine. any luck will work from a mac or a virtual ubuntu?

[perldude69]

I have no experience with either. A virtual may work if the usb ports are passed to the VM.
Just speculation though......

I just installed Ubuntu on my Windows box. It automatically adjusts the partition and installs without messing with Windows at all.

-- Jim

[vicinc]

trying to find a dvd live ubuntu see if i can get it working from there.

[stevesr0]

Originally Posted by vicinc

trying to find a dvd live ubuntu see if i can get it working from there.

To vicinc,

N.B. I am a NON-EXPERT linux user and an android noobie.

There is a MacTel support team on the Ubuntu forums: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MactelSuppor...unityHelpPages
You might look at that before proceeding to download a Live CD iso.

The isos are available for download at:http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ports/releases/10.10/release/

There are some that are said to be designed to work on intel macs. If the ones in this directory don't seem to be appropriate, just move up to the parent folder and check other ones. (For example, there are different isos for PPC and Intel Macs.

Note that you CAN run directly from the Live CD without installing. Link: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1653809 (the link included in this thread is broken, use the one above that I listed.) I haven't tried this with my iMac (it is a PPC and I don't have any PPC Linux distros - lack of interest).

Hope some of that helps.

BTW, since the Mac OS X is a UNIX derivative, is it possible that you could do what you need in the native Mac OS X environment?

Obviously, it may be more comfortable to download a live iso, burn it, boot from it and follow the nice instructions...<g>

Hope some of that is helpful

[nikkie]

You can definitely set up a tftp server on OSX.

[perldude69]

The TFTP server is the easy part. The big question is, will the Mac recognize the Intel Null Modem hardware of the PE? Ubuntu picks it up without a hitch, but Windows doesn't find a driver for it.
If someone has a Mac, just open up a serial Terminal connection with the USB connected to the PE and run the tftpboot command from the Terminal interface.

In Windows, a new device is found, but no drivers are located. In Ubuntu, a new network connection is added. Add a static IP to this new connection (192.168.2.100 is default) and you will be ready for the next step.
-- Jim

[vicinc]

I had an old desktop in my loft room with xp that was not started for a year and has also serial port (which incidentally works with termite). I am burning a ubuntu disk and will install on this one. will take me longer... good things come for those who wait.

[ivanjt]

Originally Posted by vicinc

I had an old desktop in my loft room with xp that was not started for a year and has also serial port (which incidentally works with termite). I am burning a ubuntu disk and will install on this one. will take me longer... good things come for those who wait.

Sometimes it pays to keep the old working equipment

[ktwombley]

Originally Posted by perldude69

Solved: (For me at least)
Jim dances a jig........
I tricked the update.sh into recovering the mtd partitions for me.
Here are the changes I made to the update.sh:
@Line 199
# Jim - Force update.sh to use dd instead of mtd_debug
dd if=$1 of=$3 bs=$4 count=1 >> $TMP_LOG 2>&1
@Line 216
# Jim - Force update.sh to use dd instead of mtd_debug
dd if=$3 of=$1 bs=64K >> $TMP_LOG 2>&1
@ Line 286
# Jim - Removed check for mtd device
if [[ -e $4 ]];
@ Line 329
# Jim - Removed check for mtd device
if [[ -e $4 ]];
@ Line 372
# Jim - Removed check for mtd device
if [ -e /dev/ubi0 ];
@ Line 612
# Jim - Removed check for Flash mismatch / update.sh delete
#if [ "$UPDATE_DEVICE" != "$TARGET_DEVICE" ];
@ Line 1084
# Jim - Changed == t0 != to fool update.sh into factory reimage of mtd partitions
if [ $UPDATE_TYPE != "golden" ];
@ Line 1130
# Jim Edit - Makes update.sh think this is a factory update.
if [ $UPDATE_ORIGIN != "factory" ];

It deletes everything byte by byte, and restores the image to factory default.

Enjoy!

-- Jim

For those interested, here is the whole update.sh

Rather than changing the tests at the end of update.sh you should just change the variables at the top to say it's a golden/factory update.

[vicinc]

can you suggest an update.zip modified to bypass anything from serial?

[perldude69]

Originally Posted by ktwombley

Rather than changing the tests at the end of update.sh you should just change the variables at the top to say it's a golden/factory update.

Tried this, but it broke other things in the script.

Trust me, this is the way to do this. :-)

-- Jim

[ktwombley]

Originally Posted by perldude69

Tried this, but it broke other things in the script.

Trust me, this is the way to do this. :-)

-- Jim

Like what? It looks like it'd work just fine to me!

[perldude69]

Here is the reasoning behind the method I used to modify the update.sh:

The type of update is not determined by some variable being set at the top of the script. It is determined by the start parameters of the Update.sh itself. They are writen to a system variable $1 and assigned to the script variable $BOOT_COMMAND. The system value that sets the parameter UPDATE_ORIGIN=factory is "--update_package=SDESI:update.zip".

We could hard wire this value to the $BOOT_COMMAND variable, but then other things go awry. The variable "UPDATE_SRV_DEV is assigned the value "/dev/mmcblk0p1", and this would break my system because I have the update.zip file on USB (/dev/sda1), not the mini SD card.

I found it easier to just replace the "==" check with a "!=" and call it even. It is a quick change, and once the restore is complete, I don't need to go through a lot of code to change it back to work as designed.

Do as you wish, but this was the reasoning behind my script modification.

-- Jim