Infotm(ic) / Sylvania Documentation

TechVendetta

Senior Member
Developer
Aug 17, 2011
197
93
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:
/

Code:
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:
Code:
 http://minus.com/lbp1UW7v4xQMzh

Bootable sd maker:

The following download is a largely compressed archive.
To open it, you will need to download 7zip (or use linux ;] )

After you decompress it you will have two files.
1) newsd.img (roughly 1gb)
2) hddrawcopy portable exe

You will need one micro sdcard you dont particularly care about.
Preferably a 1gb card. This should not be your regular use sdcard, since if you forget to remove it, you will end up reflashing your device when you turn it on.

Once you've found your sdcard, be sure you empty it since this will completely erase the card.
Regardless of what size card you use, (1gb - 8gb) you will end up with only 705-740mb of space left.

Simply use hddrawcopy to burn the newsd.img file to the micro sd via a card reader, then eject the card and reinsert it. The new filesystem will contain one folder named android which includes a readme and a flashable copy of the recovery ramdisk. If you have a copy of your stock ramdisk, you can trick recovery into booting automatically like so:

1) rename your ramdisk.img to ramdisk.img.original
2) rename recovery_rd.img to ramdisk.img
3) eject the card
4) flash to the device
5) rename files back
6) eject the card
7) boot device, recovery automatically opens since its the main ramdisk now
8) after backup/restore use the card to flash back the original ramdisk.img

ALWAYS REMEMBER TO SAFELY REMOVE / EJECT THE SDCARD

As I've said before some tablets (like the 7lp or some disgo's with the updater layout instead of recovery) will not boot with the recovery flashed and will required either an ius recovery or sdrecovery (by using the system, userdata, ramdisk, and uimage files extracted from your ius via iusedit) REMEMBER, you don't ever want to touch u0, I know its in the stock ius, but you never need to reflash it. EVER. The fact that your device still turns on is proof you should leave it be.

Code:
 http://min.us/mzxMWC4RM


Linux flasher:

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

sk8erwitskil

Member
Dec 21, 2011
5
0
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

Member
Dec 21, 2011
5
0
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

Senior Member
Developer
Aug 17, 2011
197
93
Try booting with the keyboard plugged in. And try both ports. It definitely works.

Sent from my LG-VM670 using Android Tablet Forum
 

lavacano

Member
Dec 25, 2011
10
1
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

Member
Dec 21, 2011
5
0
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

Member
Dec 21, 2011
5
0
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

Senior Member
Developer
Aug 17, 2011
197
93
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

Member
Dec 25, 2011
10
1
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.
 
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TechVendetta

Senior Member
Developer
Aug 17, 2011
197
93
Well iuw wont work via wine so for a Linux host you'll need my Linux flasher which still lacks even a shell ui...

Sent from my LG-VM670 using Android Tablet Forum
 

lavacano

Member
Dec 25, 2011
10
1
I run virtualbox iuw works from there, handing off usb to an sdcard reader. But the bigger concern is the sytabex7-2 does not register as a device in the usb at all. We all know that even if a device lacks drivers it will still show up in dmesg.
 
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