iLiad General firmware question

[jgray]

This is not specific to the iLiad. Is there an easy way to determine the filesystem, compression, etc. of a firmware image for a different ebook reader?

I just ordered a Jetbook and I understand that it runs Linux. I have some general Linux skills, but am not up on embedded firmware issues. Since the Jetbook comes with only two sans-serif fonts, I want to see about adding more fonts and rebuilding the firmware image.

[jgray]

None of the local Linux firmware gurus have any suggestions?

[Antartica]

Originally Posted by jgray

None of the local Linux firmware gurus have any suggestions?

Well, the problem is that a "firmware" can be anything; it just have to contain the software for the device. It is the device-specific firmware update program that transforms it to be something meaningful.

In the case of the iliad, the firmware is a compressed image of the system partition of the device.

If you want to investigate the firmware you have, a good starting point is using the "file" command, as in:

$ file firmwarefile

If you have a reasonably recent linux distro, the file command can recognize a lot of standard compression formats, partitions, filesystem images, etc.

If the firmware is a simple compressed file, you can uncompress it and do a "file" over the results.

Bear in mind that in embedded linux is not uncommon to have the "firmware" be a encrypted zip file, so only the upgrade program can use it, not the user.

Hope that helps.