Today I made my first Mistake (fixed it) but would like some information. - G1 Android Development

I am old school DOS user, so I don't know linux commands very well.
It is my understanding that the command line is similar in function but with different commands i.e. C\: copy file blah.exe to C:\here\.
Can the Recovery command line be used as such to move around on the sdcard in recovery mode using the same method, and if so, is there a list of linux commands I can familiarize myself with?

I would like to add this to all current/future G1 Hackers.
I learned a valuable mistake today. After doing lots of reading to correct it (thanx to the help of people who know what they are doing). I would like to make this one suggestion:
Get a cheap USB Card reader. Essentially you can do everything you need in windows w/o using a command line.
http://cgi.ebay.com/Cheap-MicroSD-Micro-SD-USB-2.0-Card-Reader---SHIP-$2.50_W0QQitemZ380101445086QQcmdZViewItem
It is a life saver if you makea mistake.

Brutal-Force said:
I am old school DOS user, so I don't know linux commands very well.
It is my understanding that the command line is similar in function but with different commands i.e. C\: copy file blah.exe to C:\here\.
Can the Recovery command line be used as such to move around on the sdcard in recovery mode using the same method, and if so, is there a list of linux commands I can familiarize myself with?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yes it can .. however .. the way android is setup i found everything has to be mounted from scratch .. so you wouldn't have /sdcard .. it would be blank until the mmcblk0p1 was mounted .. likewise /system would be blank etc until the mtdblock3 was mounted

So basically...
Yes it can, but not with out a lot of typing. I.e. for every command I would have to do a mount?
The linux commands I found online were difficult, because while they are comparable to the dos ones, they cannot be used verbatim. Also other commands are used while connecting to the device, which do not show up when you do a google search they way I was. I was wondering why when I did a remount from the command line, I could get to the /sdcard but then I tried to use a ls or a l command to list the files and nothing shows. I will (for my own sake) ask more questions and try to push/pull rather than do it simply by windows.
This was the first thing I tried, but it helped very little.
http://www.pixelbeat.org/cmdline.html
Thank you for your input.

I think the usb micro card reader is the best solution. Heres what I do
*8 gig sdhc micro card (everyday card)
*kingston microsd reader with 1 gig micro sd card loaded with the latest JF update.zip
Now I can just pop the 1gb card into my phone and flash the JF if I brick. And since the reader is attached to my keys, I always have the recovery with me even if Im not near a computer.

You really should learn the commands before screwing with things. The linux terminal is infinitely more powerful than dos. The side effect of this is that it is equally more complex. I suggest that you install some linux distro on your desktop computer (or an old junker you have shoved into a corner in the basement), and learn it real well. With just a little experience, you'll surely want to wipe that microshaft turd off of everything you own.

I have had ubuntu installed on my computer before
I can say that ubuntu definitely has is benefits.
A long time ago I was really into computer stuff, constantly tweaking, installing, trying out new stuff. Today I can safely say I use my computer for primarily internet browsing, googleing, information and such. That being said, it really doesn't matter which OS I actually have installed. Ubuntu, my understanding is that it simply uses less resources and of course is open source. Applications are free and there is always someone willing to lend you a hand.
Other than that, I can't see where Ubuntu was really a necessary must for me up until today. Realistically I fall back into the category of "just need it to do one thing". No doubt that Linux has its place, and If I wasn't so out of date and lazy, I would take up the coding myself.

Thanx for the Suggestion Xavier
After I read your post I was like Duhhh. Considering I have the original 1 gig that came with the phone, I did what you suggested. I have pretty much a boot disk/back up for the phone in case everything goes to pot, and I can carry it in my wallet just in case I am doing something while away from a USB port. After all, I shouldnt be tied to a usb port anyways, thats why I bought my G1 .

Related

[Idea] Android Dev system on USB Stick

As I installed rosie over the weekend I needed to put an ext2 partition on my card so used Gparted from a USB Stick. This got me thinking. I have seen people post in threads so often that they cant do ceratin mods at the moment as they are at work and dont have ADB. So I wondered if it were possible to have a usb booting version on Linux with the SDK installed and ADB setup that people could take anywhere with them and use on any available PC.
I have no idea how this would be implemented, just putting it out there for the more skilled amongst us.
I've been doing this using a "puppy linux live usb". I'm still fairly new to linux but shell and gparted work great. The whole linux is only ~100mb and doesn't modify the pc it's used on at all(tho you must be able to boot from usb). Good for those of us still learning linux. Don't know if this is what you were talking about exactly but hope it helps.
Puppy
Yup, Puppy is a cute and elegant solution - works out of the box!
Great thing. Works out of a usb no problem - just have to have a boot loader on the stick. Can recommend grub (easiest) or syslinux (can install on the usb out of xp)
Baldyman1966 said:
As I installed rosie over the weekend I needed to put an ext2 partition on my card so used Gparted from a USB Stick. This got me thinking. I have seen people post in threads so often that they cant do ceratin mods at the moment as they are at work and dont have ADB. So I wondered if it were possible to have a usb booting version on Linux with the SDK installed and ADB setup that people could take anywhere with them and use on any available PC.
I have no idea how this would be implemented, just putting it out there for the more skilled amongst us.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yeah i have a 4gig running linux mint, including recognition for the phone when connected through usb, and full development platform, with working sdk... very handy when at work etc,
i was considering selling them on ebay but didnt think people would be intrested in such a thing
soulassasin101 said:
yeah i have a 4gig running linux mint, including recognition for the phone when connected through usb, and full development platform, with working sdk... very handy when at work etc,
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Would you be able to provide an image that others could use?
Baldyman1966 said:
Would you be able to provide an image that others could use?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
dunno mate its got a 3gig casper file so i can save to it and have plenty of room for saving what i need. if its possible to make an image of the whole thing then im sure i can upload it to a torrent site or something
Baldyman1966 said:
As I installed rosie over the weekend I needed to put an ext2 partition on my card so used Gparted from a USB Stick. This got me thinking. I have seen people post in threads so often that they cant do ceratin mods at the moment as they are at work and dont have ADB. So I wondered if it were possible to have a usb booting version on Linux with the SDK installed and ADB setup that people could take anywhere with them and use on any available PC.
I have no idea how this would be implemented, just putting it out there for the more skilled amongst us.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is actually a pretty good idea. Have eclipse, adb, everything and turn it into an .iso that would be sweet. Then Haykuro could work at school haha jk.
Hey why don't you guys use VirtualBox. It's free and it runs in windows. I use it all the time.
soulassasin101 said:
i was considering selling them on ebay but didnt think people would be intrested in such a thing
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
wouldnt that violate terms and conditions of the sdk and whatever distro you use? legally all you would be able to charge for would be the cost of the flash drive, or Google might hunt you down. lol
yeah it is illegal to sell the software... id be selling my time, it did take two hours to set up and it would only be for the udb stick and my time, as i said im happy to contribute and upload if possible for free
Usually linux distros are re-distributable, but check the license.
The Android SDK license, OTOH, specifically prohibits you to "distribute any software or device incorporating a part of the SDK" regardless of whether you charge for it or not. That is, just charging for your time/materials would still go against the SDK license if the SDK was packaged in some sort of distribution.
I'll try to do this either with or without the sdk and if that is the case then add a tutorial on how to add it yourself so we don't break the laws
My first question is what linux distro would you like? I normally would use Ubuntu.
courious about linux.
Rafase282 said:
I'll try to do this either with or without the sdk and if that is the case then add a tutorial on how to add it yourself so we don't break the laws
My first question is what linux distro would you like? I normally would use Ubuntu.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I would be interested to learn how considering my noob status........ I figure it would make modding my g1 a whole lot easir. Pm me or jus post to this thread. And I will use witch ever people think is the best because I have never used it.
I started with Ubuntu 9.04 since puppy can be installed on a usb from the live cd and should be faster and a matter of just installing the sdk and eclipse.
I have in mind to install gparted, eclipse, irc, and other programs. Any suggestion or help? let me know.
Okay first attepmt failed. Ubuntu didnt start the X, I may try to do it manually this time instead.
Okay I already have the Ubuntu 9.04 updated and with some softwared installed like banshee, lastfm, currently setting up and installing the sdk. But for this part is where I need help since I didnt use the emulator or anythign but the adb commnds.
you can do it with a 4-8GB USB2.0 and SLAX linux distro http://www.slax.org/
you can add modules, including gparted, then just copy your files to the USB
malaeus said:
you can do it with a 4-8GB USB2.0 and SLAX linux distro http://www.slax.org/
you can add modules, including gparted, then just copy your files to the USB
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I tried with this one but I can never get on internet wireless, I just dont know how to. For me is easier using gnome but kde I never get used to and for me configuration is just harder on it but i'll try.
ah, i dont normally use the net when i use slax. its mainly for fixing my phone, and ill have all my files needed on the stick. including my past nandroid backups.
also, i gotta find that thread, but i read a rumour of one of the dev's working on a way to reflash your nandroid backups from the recovery screen on the g1, which would be nice. kinda off topic, nice nontheless.

Why cannot we dual boot?

I was thinking that dual booting on a single device would be a really great thing. A huge step.
Why we cannot do it?
Cannot we "emulate" partitions of the internal memory on the sdcard and then create a modified spl to boot from sdcard?
I was thinking that it is possible to make the sdcard working like internal memory..
Is it so difficult?
blackgin said:
I was thinking that dual booting on a single device would be a really great thing. A huge step.
Why we cannot do it?
Cannot we "emulate" partitions of the internal memory on the sdcard and then create a modified spl to boot from sdcard?
I was thinking that it is possible to make the sdcard working like internal memory..
Is it so difficult?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think this would be a good idea too. have a stable boot partition, then on the second boot have our "testing" partition.
Is this even possible?
Whether or not this is possible, I don't know.
But kinda related, I would like to see a bootloader that made an "image" of the entire phone to sdcard AND would also restore the entire "image" of the phone.
Why?
It would give us an easy way to test out different roms!
You could have your stable build for regular day-to-day use, you could also "image" any other rom you install, then you could switch back and forth without the need for a computer to restore using Fastboot. Using this method, you could "image" any number of builds you wouldn't to try.
There may be a way this could be done right now, I don't know. I haven't found out how. If it's already an option, someone please point me in the right direction!
It would be very difficult cause you would have to find another OS that isn't linux based. Even with a bootloader all the files will be knocked off from the previous flash because everything in these builds are pretty much in the root folder. The OS runs on these references and if you change them the OS will not run. You would have to rework the whole OS to get this to work
Someone delete me
argh xda is so slow
It would be very difficult cause you would have to find another OS that isn't linux based. Even with a bootloader all the files will be knocked off from the previous flash because everything in these builds are pretty much in the root folder. The OS runs on these references and if you change them the OS will not run. You would have to rework the whole OS to get this to work
Booting off the sdcard could be possible but would be pointless to do.
Everytime you mount the sdcard to the computer it would crash the phone. Also, There's not really enough internal space to dual boot. 1 decent ROM barely fits on as it is.
blueheeler said:
Whether or not this is possible, I don't know.
But kinda related, I would like to see a bootloader that made an "image" of the entire phone to sdcard AND would also restore the entire "image" of the phone.
Why?
It would give us an easy way to test out different roms!
You could have your stable build for regular day-to-day use, you could also "image" any other rom you install, then you could switch back and forth without the need for a computer to restore using Fastboot. Using this method, you could "image" any number of builds you wouldn't to try.
There may be a way this could be done right now, I don't know. I haven't found out how. If it's already an option, someone please point me in the right direction!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Cyanogen mentioned he was looking into this to try implement it into his recovery image. I don't think anyone's been able to restore a complete nandroid backup outside of fastboot...yet. However people are working on it. I think it's doable.
Meltus said:
Booting off the sdcard could be possible but would be pointless to do.
Everytime you mount the sdcard to the computer it would crash the phone. Also, There's not really enough internal space to dual boot. 1 decent ROM barely fits on as it is.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Maybe, maybe not. A second or third EXT partition on the sd card could possibly be used for a dual/tri boot enviornment. Only the FAT32 portion gets mounted when you mount through your phone. And there would be virtually no difference when mounting through ADB. Now would be a good time for those interested in persuing this notion to have a look at the data2sd thread. Sounds very possible to me.
overground said:
Maybe, maybe not. A second or third EXT partition on the sd card could possibly be used for a dual/tri boot enviornment. Only the FAT32 portion gets mounted when you mount through your phone. And there would be virtually no difference when mounting through ADB. Now would be a good time for those interested in persuing this notion to have a look at the data2sd thread. Sounds very possible to me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
no, i'm pretty sure all partitions get mounted, they just don't show up on windows.
on linux they all appear for me when i mount the phone.
also, sorry about the triple post, dunno wtf happened there.
Debain As Primarly OS
What Ive Been wishing for is someone to make the Dream Boot straight to Debian, No android running in the background.
Then we could boot into a debian with g1 drivers (if open source) and have gpu accl. x11.
Then maybe dual-booting android.
Im willing to try to get a debian img to boot on my g1 if someone wants to tell me where I would start to even try to attempt it.
lolz
Booting straight to Debian would be cool, except there is really no use for it on our G1's. We are best off running after loading Android, although I'm sure one day we could just boot Debian. What would the point of Debian be on our G1's? I'm running Deb5 on my Dell Mini that has a 9" inch screen and can barely see text.... how in the world would this become useful on a 3" screen???
just my £0.02
there is an old saying in my country. "if you don't believe it can work, then it won't for you". that holds so true for development. yes you will make mistakes on the way. heck i'm on my fourth G1 so far (and i suspect there will be more to come!) I love this phone, and i love the fact that we as a community can build such amazing things as the hero rom for the device.
what would we have done if the first person had said the wheel was impossible? or if the first person had said that fire was impossible. or (shock horror) electricity? or television? or telephone? or GPS? or the internet?
all of those were impossible until someone worked out how to do it.
dual boot would be pheasably posible, as the device is primeraly a computer first, and then a phone second. it boots a linux kernel from the bootloader (if i am correct in my understanding) so all we would need to do is create a bootloader with a choice in it, and then direct the phone to boot a second partition from the SD card.
the phone does mount all partitions - but only if the OS understands all partitions (test it for yourself - if you have windows and apps2sd mount the partitions and then run an app from the card it still works. but it does not under linux).
to answer the what would be the point questions, what would be the point in not doing it? surely development for a device like this is all about trying stuff, and then if it doesn't work not doing the same thing again.
i believe that a second OS would boot quite comfortably on a decent SD card. not that i have this working or anything. to make the screen readable, you just use a lower resolution (320x480). i would probably not want a full-blown GUI linux anyway, what i would want from a dual-boot OS would be a working command-line debian with FULL hardware access - allowing me to really use the phone as a fully-functioning remote terminal for my server.
i recon, though, that one thing that would be absolutely amazing is being able to have a fully-portable totally reliable XDA-Developers OS on my phone.
so, why do we not just try as much as we can to get this working? how do we start?
milestone.it said:
just my £0.02
.....
so, why do we not just try as much as we can to get this working? how do we start?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just hack the spl and flash it, but be cautionous as hell
Okay, I dont claim to know alot but I'll share my thoughts anyway
When you mount the SD all partitions get mounted, if you go into disk management in windows you can see the 'Unknown' partition if you have an ext2 partition.
Secondly, we don't really 'boot' debian, it just mounts an image file on your SD card that contains the debian binaries. As I understand it there is no reason these binaries couldn't be included in android (like busybox).
Thirdly, do we really want debian? What we need is a very light OS, android is the perfect base, take away all the gloss and its linux underneath. I love the idea of having repositories and being able to apt-get and even develop on the device.
Lastly, we're forgettign why android is such a good platform, the reason android is useful is because of the Dalvik VM, it's what allows us to make portable apps that will work on any android phone. I seriously doubt everyday users will be interested enough to learn to compile source on their phone. I've worked programming games for mobiles in J2ME and it was horrible, there was barely any portability between manufacturers, i believe android will be alot better adn from what i've seen (with people porting from other droid devices) this seems to hold true. It will be interesting to see if Android gets bloated with manufacturer specific API's like J2ME.
Also I'll just throw this out there... I'm not a fan of being tied to google, yes google helped along the way, but its not 'google android', its android. Wasn't it strange hoe Gmail worked fine, but the email app didnt? (K9 is perfect though!)
hi guys, i'm not at all a developer of any kind, i suck even at web design, but here's my thoughts expanding on the whole "what if the wheel didn't work" scenario
inventions are created by the need to do something, we need to get from A to B faster, lets make a car. we want to entertain our families in the evening, Hey look, TV. i need to tel my wife to get some milk while she's at the shop, Voila, Mobile Phone.
Basicaly the point i'm trying to make is, if somebody finds a NEED for dual boot on android, then so be it, it shall be done, maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but if something is needed, then something shall come from it. we develop technology when we need to do something faster, easier, or just plain do it.
if somebody decides they NEED dual boot, i'm pretty sure they will figure out how to do it, either that or ask haykuro for some tips and alot of help, but i think he's still too busy with regular life at the minute, i'm not so sure, all i know is he's definately a legend, and maybe will want a piece of dual-boot pie
So who is the great man who want to try to do this? ;D
I offer my help, if it could be useful..
re: dual booting
would it be blasphemous to want to try out winmo 6.5 or 7 on these?
personally, i'd love to see WM on here. mainly, just so we know it's possible.
People are always slating Windows but, personally, i don't see whats wrong with it (Linux is my primary OS and always will be ). It would be nice to have say WM for work and Android for play
any news on this? I would really like to run a hero rom one day and then cupcake the next while not losing my settings...

anyway to work on/crack the iso

this popped up earlier for me
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9M6MwNto3MQ
seems pretty neat but their are a few major things thatd i love to see fixed or somehowfixed.
first mouse support and internet working which would then allow apps hopefully.
and then since its a live cd whenever youd reboot the pc or restart all the info wouldnt be saved. any way for this aswell?
just would like this livedroid stuff to evolve like the andriod device has
seems kind of cool but........... this is what the emulator is for in the android SDK.
well i hope that this will eventually lead or get 1 step closer to dualbooting android, say windows/android id really like, especially with access to droid apps
have you seen what ubuntu is working on? a modified kernel to run android apps along side of regular linux. imagine a 10 inch netbook running ubuntu mobile that also runs the same apps as your phone. pretty slick. I think i remember finding it via hackaday.com but i'm sure some googleing will turn it up
I'd love android as a main distro, they need to make it easier to compile C/C++ apps though, currently wrapping them in java slows development in my opinion.
The wrapper for ubuntu looks good but i wouldn't really try it, that's just me though
well im just really trying to figure out some way to get android onto my laptop, either with flashdrive or dual booting. Id love to have windows as one and then android as the other if I had access to the internet and app store, because if im traveling some of the android apps would be very useful and they are alot easier to access and find then searching google with windows.
so any chance of this?
Here you go
http://en.sourceforge.jp/projects/livedroid/downloads/40887/livedroid_alpha.iso/
Created by Japanese developers, a bootable iso image (Live CD) of android for your computer.
Here's a translation of their webpage:
http://translate.google.com/translate?prev=hp&hl=en&js=n&u=http%3A%2F%2Fsourceforge.jp%2Fforum%2Fforum.php%3Fforum_id%3D19230&sl=ja&tl=en&history_state0=
You should be able to open the iso with any iso program such as PowerISO, or Magic ISO, etc, then repack the iso with the same program (I was able to do it in Power ISO) Shouldn't be as difficult as opening a *.img
thanks for the links but thats the same thing I posted in topic. is their anyway to put this onto a USB and have the USB bootable?
I would deff use this IF
-it had internet working
-could save the data (maybe stored onto a flash drive or turned into an actual dual boot along windows etc...)
-and with the internet working I could download apps from market place, If I could dl apps id actually use this sometimes because some of the apps would be very very useful in public with Inet access such as where, or the information apps and itd just be plain fun
so any chance of these coming?
anyone thinking of messing with this?
samrozzi said:
thanks for the links but thats the same thing I posted in topic. is their anyway to put this onto a USB and have the USB bootable?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have you tried googling it? Something along the lines of "how to create a bootable usb drive linux"
Here's one I found that seems to be the most user friendly, I can't verify if it works or not with this android build (although it should.)
http://tombuntu.com/index.php/2008/08/27/create-a-bootable-usb-drive-or-memory-card/
Why not just use a virtual machine, mounting the ISO?
It is not easy to modify android to support many wifi- or lan-devices..
v6tc said:
Why not just use a virtual machine, mounting the ISO?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Because this is like when you're installing a fresh version of windows, or restoring.
You need the CD in the cd drive, then restart (as in shut down and start up)
But before it even starts loading windows, it loads the cd instead.
I think some computers can load from a USB drive, check your computer's BIOS
igloo77055 said:
Because this is like when you're installing a fresh version of windows, or restoring.
You need the CD in the cd drive, then restart (as in shut down and start up)
But before it even starts loading windows, it loads the cd instead.
I think some computers can load from a USB drive, check your computer's BIOS
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That doesn't really answer his question, does it?
I think you could easily mount the iso in e.g. VirtualBox/VMWare and start it virtualized. They seem to have included a standard linux kernel with enough modules
rb2k said:
That doesn't really answer his question, does it?
I think you could easily mount the iso in e.g. VirtualBox/VMWare and start it virtualized. They seem to have included a standard linux kernel with enough modules
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry, I guess I really didn't know what he was talking about =X
But yeah you are right... hmm that should work, although I've never worked with
a VirtualBox
And in virtualbox.. You could use the "freezing"-function to freeze the state ;-) Only thing to fix is wlan/lan.
Wlan should be easier - the driver is named wlan.ko.
You need to compile a driver.
After playing around with it a bit, it's really only a novelty..
I'm running it on Virtual box.. and it seems rather pointless other then for "demonstrating android." The applications that come on it are, for the most part, inopperable and force close left and right. It doesn't seem like it has any practical use, because the available system memory is stuck at 14mb.
However, if this was developed into an installer, not just a live cd, then I could see it having a lot of potential. once you could utilize system resources it would be worth looking into developing drivers for.
For now it would be impractical and maybe impossible to establish a network connection.

[Q] Viewsonic G Tab Memory issue

I have a Viewsonic G Tab that I flashed to Cyanogen 7. Now when I plug the device into my computer, it only reads the SD card I inserted (not the phone's internal memory). Plus, I can't use any file explorer programs to copy and paste from the SD card to the phone's memory. This is making things like flashing a different rom or adding the marketplace pretty much impossible. Any help? I'm new to rooting tabs, but I've hacked quite a few phones.
If there's a dev out there that has an answer that gets me up and running, I'd be more than happy to donate.
jskrenes said:
I have a Viewsonic G Tab that I flashed to Cyanogen 7. Now when I plug the device into my computer, it only reads the SD card I inserted (not the phone's internal memory). Plus, I can't use any file explorer programs to copy and paste from the SD card to the phone's memory. This is making things like flashing a different rom or adding the marketplace pretty much impossible. Any help? I'm new to rooting tabs, but I've hacked quite a few phones.
If there's a dev out there that has an answer that gets me up and running, I'd be more than happy to donate.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have read other reports of this, though i don't have a solution for this problem, you could try something else.
When you are connected over usb, use adb from the android sdk and try "adb push file_on_computer file_on_device" to get some files on there.
Crap, I am not a programmer, and haven't gotten into using adb. I don't expect a full explanation of what adb is and how to get it and other android sdk stuff on my computer, as I know there are tons of posts and resources on this and other forums that will get me there.
jskrenes said:
Crap, I am not a programmer, and haven't gotten into using adb. I don't expect a full explanation of what adb is and how to get it and other android sdk stuff on my computer, as I know there are tons of posts and resources on this and other forums that will get me there.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Searching is always better , but i will give you some hints:
Download the SDK here
Install it.
Open the windows command prompt. (press windows button + R, type "cmd" , press enter)
If you installed it to "C:\android" go to "C:\android\platform-tools" inside the command prompt.
Type adb -h to see all available commands.
If you have further questions, google them, if you still have questions, come here and ask .
Cool, thanks. I bought this to try and save a few (hundred) bucks over the Xoom, and got the added bonus of getting to tweak it, which I kind of enjoy, I was just hoping to not have to learn this much stuff.
On a related note, if I get the device back to factory stock, do you know if I can download an app to my Android phone's SD card, drop the card into my Viewsonic, and load the apk from there? Loading the Android market on this thing sounds complicated (though it'll be child's play if I can bring it back to life).
jskrenes said:
Cool, thanks. I bought this to try and save a few (hundred) bucks over the Xoom, and got the added bonus of getting to tweak it, which I kind of enjoy, I was just hoping to not have to learn this much stuff.
On a related note, if I get the device back to factory stock, do you know if I can download an app to my Android phone's SD card, drop the card into my Viewsonic, and load the apk from there? Loading the Android market on this thing sounds complicated (though it'll be child's play if I can bring it back to life).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well if you want tweaking you will have to learn a bit .
Depends on the app. If it is copyprotected or is using the licensing service i don't think you can copy it over.
Cyanogen came with a copy of ROM manager pre-installed on boot. A lot of features were limited to the full version, but I managed to do some reformatting and stuff (I wish I knew exactly what I did) and managed to get a different ROM installed and all seems to be working well.
I don't mind learning, but I either have to do it while I'm at work, which takes me off the sales floor, or at home, and I have a new kid to take care of, so the less learning I *have* to do, the better. But the nice thing about Android is that it is for the most part fairly resilient, and I've yet to encounter a software problem I couldn't fix.

My MicroSD card is starting to corrupt

My /Removable/MicroSD is starting to corrupt. I've been editing scripts on my MicroSD with ES note editor. It started today with files not overwriting other files with the same name, then progressed into edited files saved with corrupt or no data at all, then a few files disappeared, then a directory became corrupt and I could not see a file that ES told me I was overwriting with another file with the same name, and now I am loosing full directories. Is this a partition issue or is the whole card going/gone bad? The card is as factory shipped. I have never formatted or partitioned it.
I have unmounted and remounted the card. That allowed me to edit and save for a few hours. Then another corrupted file happened. I just took the card out and reinserted it as this fixed a similar problem I had a while ago but it only happened once and went away until now, so we'll see if it just wasn't seated properly. One of the 2 directories that disappeared came back after reinserting the card but the second is still missing. I had already backed up my scripts, and now I will back up the entire card to disk.
Does this sound like its going or gone South, or will pulling all the data off, formatting the card, and putting it all back on work to fix it? Is it safe to trust this card anymore or should I RMA it as it should still be under warranty? Its a Sandisk 64 SDXC and not "officially" compatible and was wondering about that as well. I've had it for about 6 mos. I had hoped by spending the little extra $ and picking a name brand it would be more reliable but I guess I got a bad one despite the on-average Sandisk quality. Any advice would be appreciated.
So far, I've only once suspected my microSD (as in yoru case a 64 GB Sandisk UHS-1 Class card) to have gone bad. (Re)formatted it with Gparted (was running data2sd at the time, kicked that out, too) and it has been going strong since without a single hitch.
I'd try and format it, doesn't hurt, only takes time, and it satisfies your tinkering needs at the same time.
MartyHulskemper said:
So far, I've only once suspected my microSD (as in yoru case a 64 GB Sandisk UHS-1 Class card) to have gone bad. (Re)formatted it with Gparted (was running data2sd at the time, kicked that out, too) and it has been going strong since without a single hitch.
I'd try and format it, doesn't hurt, only takes time, and it satisfies your tinkering needs at the same time.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the reply. What is interesting and seems far-fetched to be coincidental is the corrupted directories are the directories that I am constantly editing and saving files to - My scripts dir and its sub-directories. Guess they mean it when they say flash was not designed to be constantly written to. I can't *believe* I have cycled it to its limit just editing scripts over a 6 mos span. I couldn't have saved files more than a couple thousand times if that.
Waterproof**, x-ray proof**, temperature proof**, shockproof**, but NOT write-proof**
Double directories? This is getting out of hand!
Well I am backing up my MicroSD now, and I just ran across two directories with the same name in the same folder? Two "Scripts". How is this possible? One had files, the other was blank? How can the OS allow this to happen? When it copied to Windows, a (1) was appended to the directory name of the second duplicate.
Just for S&G, I tried to copy a file from one into the other and Windows errored saying something like "device is busy or has been disconnected."
If I had files in both directories and I cd to that directory, which one would I get (trick question)? I believe the dups are only on Windows. I don't think the device actually sees both directories. At least it doesn't show them to me in ES. Bizarre corruption. That surely might explain why files in this directory were getting corrupted. Or maybe the corruption of the files was responsible for the double directories. Time for a format (and a beer) for sure.
Let this be a word to the wise:
So yes I am going to format this, but I wanted to play with this problem a bit and see what I could figure out. As I predicted, and made about my 5th backup just in case, here's what just happened.
1. When there were Script dir duplicates, I could copy from the one with files.
2. I deleted the one without files (predicting it may delete both, but it only deleted the blank one as intended but...)
3. The remaining Script dir could not be copied from, nor a new sub-directory created inside. File names could not be changed. Actually it did allow me to make a copy, but the target directory was blank.
4. Deleted the second Script directory. Now the B2R script is lost forever (no just kidding, I have 5 backups at least)
5. Copied one of my backup copies of Scripts back to the card
6. Now its fine (until I can format it), I can copy from it and create sub-dirs inside it, etc. But I will be working off another copy in Internal storage until I format this card.
7. So the lesson here is ALWAYS make a backup before something glitches out on you because it eventually will and you will need it, or choose to be SOL; life is full of choices. And if it has already glitched out on you, make a second backup of your critical files just in case something like this happens to you and you've made incremental changes. Without my backups I would be loosing about 3 months work in just this one folder alone. It contains every script I have ever written and a bunch of example scripts to learn from.
@_that to comment, but this is what I think happened: This must be some kind of corrupt FAT problem. Very similar to the recovery blob not being found by the bootloader issue from a recent post, but instead of a partition problem its a file allocation table problem, as they reside on the same partition in my case, quote _that below:
"I have a new theory about why this happens: partition tables mismatch. In other words: The location where the recovery writes the blob is not the same as where the bootloader expects it. Thus the bootloader ignores your blob."
It seems the empty directory was the directory the system thought the files were in. Once that directory was removed, the actual one (as the human perceives; as seen in ES) containing files no longer contained them, as far as the OS was concerned. So by deleting the one you effectively deleted the other because its impossible that can can coexist and both be functional. I thought something like this would happen and it did. Like I said earlier, its Miller time.
elfaure said:
7. So the lesson here is ALWAYS make a backup before something glitches out on you because it eventually will and you will need it, or choose to be SOL; life is full of choices. And if it has already glitched out on you, make a second backup of your critical files just in case something like this happens to you and you've made incremental changes.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Good advice. Always make one backup more than you think you need.
elfaure said:
This must be some kind of corrupt FAT problem.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Probably. ExFAT is a proprietary and patented Microsoft filesystem, and support for it in our TF700 is through a proprietary closed-source third-party kernel module that contains this licensed "technology".
You could try running chkdsk in Windows on the card to detect and fix filesystem errors.
_that said:
Good advice. Always make one backup more than you think you need.
Probably. ExFAT is a proprietary and patented Microsoft filesystem, and support for it in our TF700 is through a proprietary closed-source third-party kernel module that contains this licensed "technology".
You could try running chkdsk in Windows on the card to detect and fix filesystem errors.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Funny how they don't even support exFAT in XP without an extension. Maybe it was developed after XP was released. I would assume it is supported by default in W7 and above?
Question: Do you know what is the su password for the terminal app in GParted Live? Or is this limited to GNU staff use??
Do I "sudo gparted" or "sudo passwd root" and set a new password??
elfaure said:
Funny how they don't even support exFAT in XP without an extension. Maybe it was developed after XP was released. I would assume it is supported by default in W7 and above?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Good guess. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ExFAT
elfaure said:
Question: Do you know what is the su password for the terminal app in GParted Live? Or is this limited to GNU staff use??
Do I "sudo gparted" or "sudo passwd root" and set a new password??
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=gparted+live+root+password
GParted live is based on Debian live, and the default account is "user", with password "live". There is no root password, so if you need root privileges, login as "user", then run "sudo" to get root privileges.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can run "sudo -i" to just get a root shell if you want.
_that said:
Good guess. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ExFAT
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=gparted+live+root+password
You can run "sudo -i" to just get a root shell if you want.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Looks like my windows\system32 dir has a 2004 date on it. So just before it came out. Nice they have a patch now.
lmgtfy.com is very cool! I've never seen _that before. Really a good way to say "why can't YOU just Google it YOURSELF". Yes, I already followed the same link to get the commands I asked about.
I couldn't figure out a way to get a Logitech bluetooth mouse working in Gparted Live. Probably need linux drivers?
elfaure said:
I couldn't figure out a way to get a Logitech bluetooth mouse working in Gparted Live. Probably need linux drivers?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's a live distro for partitioning stuff, not for supporting all kinds of exotic hardware. Most likely it doesn't even have any bluetooth stack. Use a full desktop distribution like Mint if you want support for bluetooth input devices.
_that said:
That's a live distro for partitioning stuff, not for supporting all kinds of exotic hardware. Most likely it doesn't even have any bluetooth stack. Use a full desktop distribution like Mint if you want support for bluetooth input devices.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, I figured as much but I thought you possibly have a trick.
Cinnamon or Mate desktop? Live iso version available somewhere (couldn't find one)? Never mind, I think I got it. I don't need you to send me another lmgtfy link. But still, Cinnamon or Mate desktop?
Ok, here's my problem. I need to make a bootable CD (not DVD). The iso for Mint 15 Cinnamon is 923MB. It won't fit on a 700MB CD, and my PC can't boot off DVD or USB. Any suggestions besides having to partition a HDD to install a dual-boot configuration which I don't want to have to do just to run Linux once in a while. I would like a Live CD instead. Reduced size minimal distro somewhere to be found?
Ok, found one here for Linux Mint 13 Maya. Hope its not someone's hack. But I think its a better option than Plop. I don't want to start hacking my Windows PC all up just to get Linux. If its any more hassle than burning a CD I'll just use GParted with a corded mouse.
Only 7 available seeds for this torrent, and only 1 is up now. Popular item! (ha). Had it going with 4 but I was hogging too much bandwidth and had to pause fpr a bit then restart. When it restarted, looks like 3 of my seeds blew away in the wind. Looks like tomorrow then...I was hoping to burn the iso and play with it tonight. Oh wait, just got another 1 back. Now were up to 100kB/s. Whoopee
**********************************************************************************************************
http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=110933 (last link goes to next link)
http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=61&t=103449&p=604069
elfaure said:
Ok, here's my problem. I need to make a bootable CD (not DVD). The iso for Mint 15 Cinnamon is 923MB. It won't fit on a 700MB CD, and my PC can't boot off DVD or USB.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You have a strange PC. Or no DVD drive?
All PCs that I know (that have been produced in this millennium) can boot from DVD or USB with correct BIOS setting and a correctly formatted bootable medium.
_that said:
You have a strange PC. Or no DVD drive?
All PCs that I know (that have been produced in this millennium) can boot from DVD or USB with correct BIOS setting and a correctly formatted bootable medium.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes I know. I'm cheap and old school with PCs, what can I say. The rest of my devices are current offering. I haven't bought a new PC for over 10 years. Its an older "failed" CAD station that was slated for the dumpster about 3 years ago, then being about 3-4 years old, because our admin was too lazy to test for a simple problem - a failed RAM SIMM. I resurrected it, replaced the failed 512 SIMM and added two more, added a scavenged drive (now 3), and now its my home $100 desktop (replacing the free Pentium I had but was too slow to use). It already had the Quadro FX 3800 video card with a dual core Xeon CPU @ 3.33 GHz. But no DVD drive, only CD drive. BIOS does not support boot from USB either.
Its faster than my old work Dell Precision 690 before I got my new 6-core Xeon T3500. So those were my limitations to work with. And I think I found the best possible solution with Mint 13 Maya iso CD. Looks like Mint 15 just was released. Beautiful OS by the way, I checked out some uTube on it last night. Can't wait to test drive it. Might even make an MS defector out of me. Linux seems to run well on older hardware with slower CPUs vs Windows on the same hardware, so I'm hoping it can breath new life into this semi-archaic box I call my desktop. Now you see why I'm on the tablet so much.
Hey @_that
You were right again. It is a DVD drive. In XP Pro SP2 it was just a CD but after installing SP3 it shows up now as a DVD/CD. Getting Mint 15 32 bit now instead. The DVD drive bay load door is scratched and faded, so I couldn't tell just by looking at it, and was going off what Windows device manager was showing in its tree. I did initially pop a DVD in and it couldn't read it which further substantiated that it was a CD and I never questioned it. Turns out the DVD I tested it with was a DL, and this is only a SL DVD drive. Now I have a 1.7GB limitation, not 700MB which opens up most iso options. But I still have no boot from USB option in my BIOS. I'll look to see if there's an updated BIOS available to open up that option. It would be very nice to have a few thumb drives with different Linux distros to test drive, and a puppy Linux on my key chain.
Sent from my ADR6350 using xda app-developers app
Live Mint 15 Mate
Hey @_that-
Coming to you live from Linux Mint 15 Mate. I guess when running this off a live CD, there is no way to copy a file to /etc is there? I opened it as administrator, and it still wouldn't let me copy the file because this directory is on the CD, not the HDD, correct? I was trying to get my Synergy connected between my MS PC and my other PC running live Linux so I can share my mouse and keyboard seamlessly without my KVM switch. I'm impressed with how easy this is to setup. Also with your ability to see me as a Windows transitional user, and point me to Mint and not Ubuntu. I like it.
elfaure said:
Coming to you live from Linux Mint 15 Mate. I guess when running this off a live CD, there is no way to copy a file to /etc is there?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't know about the live environment - it's normally only used to install the OS to a real hard drive. I find it still strange that your PC doesn't support booting from USB. Maybe that's a sign that you really should install Linux on a HDD.
elfaure said:
I was trying to get my Synergy connected between my MS PC and my other PC running live Linux so I can share my mouse and keyboard seamlessly without my KVM switch. I'm impressed with how easy this is to setup. Also with your ability to see me as a Windows transitional user, and point me to Mint and not Ubuntu. I like it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
2 monitors, 1 keyboard, 1 mouse? Yes, Synergy is nice.
And why Mint: I simply don't agree with Mark Shuttleworth's direction where he is taking Ubuntu - fortunately there are alternatives in the OSS world. I consider Mint as the "sane", i.e. actually usable, version of Ubuntu.
_that said:
I don't know about the live environment - it's normally only used to install the OS to a real hard drive. I find it still strange that your PC doesn't support booting from USB. Maybe that's a sign that you really should install Linux on a HDD.
2 monitors, 1 keyboard, 1 mouse? Yes, Synergy is nice.
And why Mint: I simply don't agree with Mark Shuttleworth's direction where he is taking Ubuntu - fortunately there are alternatives in the OSS world. I consider Mint as the "sane", i.e. actually usable, version of Ubuntu.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, this is my work environment now. I have two Dell Precisions, one a 690 and the other a T3500. You got it, two monitors, 1 kb, 1 mouse. Downloading and installing Wine now. I am interested to see if I can run Solidworks on Linux thru Wine. Wow, Linux had come a long way. "sudo apt-get install synergy". All the terminal commands I learned for Android are very useful now, thanks!
ps-"sudo -i" works like a charm.
[Edit] Doesn't look like SW wants to run on Linux loaded thru Wine. I figured as much, but it was worth a try.
Video is not bad at all, despite all I've read. They really must have clean it up for 15. Picture is good, sound is good, seeking is a bit slow, and my biggest complaint is there is no stretch or zoom to fill the entire screen. You have to select from predefined aspect ratios and get as close as you can. Android has better tools in this area than Mint, or maybe it more closely matches a standard aspect ratio like 16:9 for 1920 x 1200 is close (1.77 vs 1.6). Ok, _that's it for the day. Got to get some real work done here now.
Regarding the live environment, its used all the time to test drive different Linux distros before deciding which one to finally install. That's the beauty of a free open OS and a 50 cent DVD and its advantage over a flash card in this case, if you wanted to test 3-5 different ones (back and forth, not sequentially) before deciding on *the one* to finally install to HDD.
elfaure said:
Video is not bad at all, despite all I've read. They really must have clean it up for 15. Picture is good, sound is good, seeking is a bit slow, and my biggest complaint is there is no stretch or zoom to fill the entire screen. You have to select from predefined aspect ratios and get as close as you can. Android has better tools in this area than Mint, or maybe it more closely matches a standard aspect ratio like 16:9 for 1920 x 1200 is close (1.77 vs 1.6).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have no idea what you are talking about. There are lots of media players to choose from, and all that I know have a fullscreen mode.
_that said:
I have no idea what you are talking about. There are lots of media players to choose from, and all that I know have a fullscreen mode.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What I mean is by toggling full screen in Mint, its less than full screen because the movie aspect ratio of its recorded resolution is preserved in the scaling function. So there are still black bands either high/low or left/right if you don't play with the player aspect ratio (4:3 vs 16:9) to best match that of your movie in the distros fullscreen mode with the stock player. Which ever limits to extents first in the scaling horiz or vertical DPI defines the "fullscreen" size you get which is less than a full screen. A zoom function does not but a stretch function does override the recorded aspect ratio to fill the full screen (I'm talking about TV's and Dice/BS/MX Player features now, not what's in the Linux default distro player) so with stretch you can get a distorted picture (disproportionate scaling) but not with zoom. These are not included in the stock distro player.
elfaure said:
What I mean is by toggling full screen in Mint...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am using mplayer for video playback - I don't know if that is still included in end-user-focused distros like Mint, but it's one of the most powerful video players that exist. Mplayer has no GUI at all (everything is controlled via the keyboard) - and the "f" key toggles between fullscreen and window.

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