Infotm(ic) / Sylvania Documentation

[TechVendetta]

This is a place holder for where I will do a write-up on all the released and unreleased progress I have made and any other helpful tools, sources, and patches I have made.

Eye-Candy:
TechVendetta Andy portal background
http://minus.com/mDiCWUe3n/1f

CWR for infotm(ic) / Sylvania:

Hey look, I actually finished it:
NEW FEATURES:
No more need for an external keyboard
Fixed the warnings and mount issues
More ui candy
Background code for ota updates (in future)
various other small tweaks

Here's the new recovery ramdisk [3/27/12]: http://min.us/mbjJ9i3KhK
Flash it with iuw as RECVRD.
If you cant find the button combo for your model to boot recovery, then you need to root it, install a terminal and type su [enter] reboot recovery

Tested on Sylvania 7" (sytabex7) and iCan 10"

sdbootable method coming soon for devices that lost otg mode.

Rom Manager should be able to reboot recovery too. But before you go messing with it trying to flash roms, be warned this has access to all partitions of the device (including boot) I'm not liable blah blah blah.

Developer only tools:/

README:
THESE FILES WERE DISTRIBUTED ON ANDROIDTABLETS.NET AND TECHVENDETTA.COM
These binaries are gpl, however, the system images you build using them are not. (proprietary files)
I'm not responsible for your use and or misuse of these tools or what you attempt to do with their output.

32bit binaries:

USAGE:
chmod +x mkyaffs2image
./mkyaffs2image -c 4096 -s 128 -f system system.img


Your working directory should contain the binary mkyaffs2image and a system folder to work with. If dumping from device,
you must tar.gz the system folder before placing it on sd to preserve the symlinks. -f tries to fix them but sometimes cant.
If you have an ius file, to get system.img use the ius editor found here on androidtablets.net, then:

chmod +x unyaffs4k
./unyaffs4k system.img
this dumps the contents of /system/ into the EXTRACTING_SYSTEM folder. 
Next you need to copy everything into a folder named "system"
make your changes, and rebuild.

ALSO NOTE: you need a filesystem that supports symlinks so dont try this on a fat or fat32 partition.

any questions at all, just send me a pm @ TechVendetta on androidtablets.net

Also, once you get the hang of working with this stuff shoot me a pm and maybe I'll add you to my DEV circle on g+

~TechVendetta

http://min.us/lpBLSwgZfXcro

Documentation overview paper:

 http://minus.com/lbp1UW7v4xQMzh

Linux flasher:

 Currently doing a write-up and packaging / making more user friendly (less hackish)

[Sponsors]

[sk8erwitskil]

i have been trying to get this working but cannot seem to get the usb keyboard to do anything once i boot into recovery. i want to map the buttons differently and was wondering if you had the source code for the recvrd.img? also want to do some dev on getting cyanogenmod ready for my sytabex7. been trying to unyaffs my system.img and whatnot but every time i try it says "broken image". i tried opening 11.2.1.5.2.0_beta4.ius in the ius_editor from this site and i also tried to "cat /dev/block/mtdblock3 > /mnt/sdcard/system.img" and both system.img do not unyaffs. any ideas why? thanks

[sk8erwitskil]

update: i was finally able to uncompress the system.img by opening it in hex editor and deleting all the bytes before the gzip header. i still cannot get the keyboard to work in recovery though.

[TechVendetta]

Try booting with the keyboard plugged in. And try both ports. It definitely works.

Sent from my LG-VM670 using Android Tablet Forum

[lavacano]

I have a sytabex7-2 and am fed up with the chinese market.

what versions of iuw have been tested? does it come with busybox? have you modified framework.jar so we dont need to use Market Enabler?

[sk8erwitskil]

i use iuw1.2 and it works for flashing .ius files but i cannot get the expert mode flashes to stick. i have compiled a kernel from source and flashed the zImage and when i rebooted it still had the same kernel. its weird.

and i have tried both ports, booting with the keyboard plugged in and still cannot get the arrow keys to work. i would like to map the "menu" button to be the "down" arrow and the power button to be "select". that way i could at least scroll down to select options.

[sk8erwitskil]

i copied the kernel to my local folder and i cant even get the kernel to stick when i do "flash_image kernel /local/zImage". the command completes without errors but upon reboot still neville's kernel

[TechVendetta]

The recovery is primarily for system zips. And you can't map power without changing a significant amount of code. In the future I might but right now its not a priority. The keys are mapped weird for keyboards too. When I find the mapping chart I made ill post it. Kernel flashes work only if they are packaged properly for your method of flashing. Iuw kernels are different from compiled kernels. If you have specifics you want to talk about then find me on g+ to chat sometime.

Sent from my LG-VM670 using Android Tablet Forum

[lavacano]

FYI: I cannot get my SYTABEX7-2 to work with OTG flashing. The USB never once has registered a device being connected, and I continually monitered dmesg. I've tried with and without the power adapter, both usb ports, different mini to a cables, different ports on the compo, tablet power on, off, menu + power at boot, menu + power + screen at boot, enabled USB debugging (which shouldn't matter). no avail. I have also tried with different ius's installed both stock and one from a synet7lp.

[TechVendetta]

dmesg on the tab, or on a linux host?