firmware News - Page 26 of 32 - CNX Software

October 7, 2014October 7, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

MatchStick’s Firefox OS Firmware Ported to MK808B mini PC

MatchStick is an HDMI Stick running Firefox OS and designed to stream online video, mirroring browsers, etc.. which makes it very similar to a Chromecast, even using the same DIAL protocol. The hardware is based on Rockchip RK3066, and Mozilla released an SDK for the device. Since there are quite a few Rockchip RK3066 TV sticks out there, BalintBanyasz announced he ported MatchStick’s firmware to MK808B (with RK903 Wi-Fi module), and has now provided the firmware and instructions on Freaktab. The firmware is based on Linux kernel 3.0.36+ used in Android 4.2.2. Once you’ve flash the firmware (matchstick-flingone-b2g2.0-201409281739-mk808b.img.7z) to MK808B, and installed MatchStick app / add-on in your Android device or Firefox Browser (iOS app coming) soon, you can “fling” a YouTube video from your phone / browser to your TV through MK808B as follows: Open MatchStick app on your phone in order to detect the hotspot (MatchStickXXXX) created by […]

October 4, 2014May 29, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 8 Comments

How to Upgrade Allwinner A80 OptimusBoard Firmware

After informing Allwinner I had some rather slow write speed (3MB/s) to the NTFS partition of my USB drive on my A80 OptimusBoard, they kindly provided a new compressed Android firmware image (sun9iw1p1_android_optimus_v1.2_20140930.img.7z) with some NTFS optimizations that can be downloaded from baidu (password: x2tz), mega.co.nz or simos.info (please only use this link, if the other two do not work as it’s a private website and monthly bandwidth may be limited). I vaguely remember tools like LiveSuit (Linux) or PhoenixSuite (Windows), and I ended up on sunxi-linux Livesuit wiki as I’m running Ubuntu 14.04 on my PC, but you should be able to flash the firmware with PhoenixSuite if you run Windows. The instructions below can also be used for other Allwinner based devices. First you need to install LiveSuit, and build Allwinner USB drivers as follows:

sudo apt-get install dkms git build-essential
git clone https://github.com/linux-sunxi/sunxi-livesuite.git
cd sunxi-livesuite/awusb
make
sudo cp awusb.ko /lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/
sudo depmod -a
sudo modprobe awusb
cd..

sudo apt-get install dkms git build-essential

git clone https://github.com/linux-sunxi/sunxi-livesuite.git

cd sunxi-livesuite/awusb

make

sudo cp awusb.ko /lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/

sudo depmod -a

sudo modprobe awusb

cd..

In order to use LiveSuit as a normal user, you also have […]

October 1, 2014July 28, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

HydraBus is an Open Source Hardware STM32 Devkit with Support for NFC via HydraNFC Shield

Recently, I wrote about the public availability of a MicroPython board based on STMicro STM32F4 Cortex M4 support that can easily be programmed with Python. It turns out there’s another STM32 board called HydraBus, also supporting Micro Python firmware, or another embedded firmware based on ChibiOS, together with an optional HydraNFC shield capable of sniffing, reading/writing or emulating any 13.56MHz NFC tags. HydraBus Specifications: MCU – STMicro TM32F405RG micro-controller @ 168 MHz with 1MB flash, 192KB SRAM, and an FPU. External Storage – Micro SD card slot up to 48MHz (~24MB/s) Expansion Headers – 4 headers with access to 44 I/Os (some already used by micro SD and USB 1 & 2). USB – 2x micro USB connector including 1x OTG port, and 1x device/host port, both with ESD protection. Misc – Reset and user button, user LED, Power – 5V via micro USB port. Dimensions – 60mm x […]

September 17, 2014May 7, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 16 Comments

Creating and Flashing an Android Image from Rockchip RK3288 SDK

Following up on my post explaining how to build Android for RK3288 TV box, I’ve generated a firmware image, and flashed it to Tronsmart Orion R28 Meta TV box to see if it could boot properly. There’s basically no information in the Andoird SDK explaining how to do basic things like building from source, and generating and flashing the resulting image, so I’d like to thanks Linuxium, Droidmote and Naobsd for their various tips. Since I’ve built everything from source, I’m using a Linux machine, but you should be able to create and flash the Android image in Windows using tools in RKTools/windows folder. First let’s copy the required, and freshly built, files to create the firmware:

cp rockdev/Image-rk3288/* RKTools/linux/Linux_Upgrade_Tool_v1.2/rockdev/Image/
cp RKTools/rk3288-3.10-uboot-data1G.parameter.txt RKTools/linux/Linux_Upgrade_Tool_v1.2/rockdev/parameter
cp RKTools/bootloader/uboot-emmc/RK3288Loader_uboot_Apr212014_134842.bin RKTools/linux/Linux_Upgrade_Tool_v1.2/rockdev/
cd RKTools/linux/Linux_Upgrade_Tool_v1.2/rockdev/

cp rockdev/Image-rk3288/* RKTools/linux/Linux_Upgrade_Tool_v1.2/rockdev/Image/

cp RKTools/rk3288-3.10-uboot-data1G.parameter.txt RKTools/linux/Linux_Upgrade_Tool_v1.2/rockdev/parameter

cp RKTools/bootloader/uboot-emmc/RK3288Loader_uboot_Apr212014_134842.bin RKTools/linux/Linux_Upgrade_Tool_v1.2/rockdev/

cd RKTools/linux/Linux_Upgrade_Tool_v1.2/rockdev/

We’ll also need to edit package-file follows (I only had to change the bootloader field):

# NAME Relative path
#
#HWDEF HWDEF
package-file package-file
bootloader RK3288Loader_uboot_Apr212014_134842.bin
parameter parameter
misc Image/misc.img
kernel Image/kernel.img
boot Image/boot.img
recovery Image/recovery.img
system Image/system.img
backup RESERVED
#update-script update-script
#recover-script recover-script

# NAME Relative path

#HWDEF HWDEF

package-file package-file

bootloader RK3288Loader_uboot_Apr212014_134842.bin

parameter parameter

misc Image/misc.img

kernel Image/kernel.img

boot Image/boot.img

recovery Image/recovery.img

system Image/system.img

backup RESERVED

#update-script update-script

#recover-script recover-script

And now create the firmware file:

./mkupdate
start to make update.img...
Android Firmware Package Tool v1.0
------ PACKAGE ------
Add file: ./package-file
Add file: ./RK3288Loader_uboot_Apr212014_134842.bin
Add file: ./parameter
Add file: ./Image/misc.img
Add file: ./Image/kernel.img
Add file: ./Image/boot.img
Add file: ./Image/recovery.img
Add file: ./Image/system.img
Add CRC...
Make firmware OK!
------ OK ------
********RKImageMaker ver 1.61********
Generating new image, please wait...
Writing head info...
Writing boot file...
Writing firmware...
Generating MD5 data...
MD5 data generated successfully!
New image generated successfully!
Making update.img OK.
Press any key to quit:

./mkupdate

start to make update.img...

Android Firmware Package Tool v1.0

------ PACKAGE ------

Add file: ./package-file

Add file: ./RK3288Loader_uboot_Apr212014_134842.bin

Add file: ./parameter

Add file: ./Image/misc.img

Add file: ./Image/kernel.img

Add file: ./Image/boot.img

Add file: ./Image/recovery.img

Add file: ./Image/system.img

Add CRC...

Make firmware OK!

------ OK ------

********RKImageMaker ver 1.61********

Generating new image, please wait...

Writing head info...

Writing boot file...

Writing firmware...

Generating MD5 data...

MD5 data generated successfully!

New image generated successfully!

Making update.img OK.

Press any key to quit:

The firmware file update.img can be flashed with upgrade_tool […]

August 20, 2014August 20, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

Freescale i.MX6 Development Boards (Wandboard, Cubox-i and HummingBoard) Get Android Kitkat Firmware and SDK

Several Freescale i.MX6 development boards have gotten a KitKat treat this month with the release of Android 4.4 firmware and SDK. The boards involved include Wandboard Solo/Dual/Quad, as well as Solidrun Cubox-i boards, and the Raspberry Pi like HummingBoard. Thanks to the “magic” of device tree, a single firmware image is now provided for all the boards provided by a given company. For Wandboard Solo, Dual, and Quad: Demo firmware image – android-4.4.2-wandboard-20140815.zip SDK with source code – wandboard_android-4.4.2_fullsource_20140815.tar.xz For CuBox-i and HummingBoard: Firmware image – android-4.4.2-1.0.1b-ga-aaf118bb78-gapps.img.xz Android 4.4 KitKat souce code and build instructions are available on github. Thanks to … Harley! Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011. www.cnx-software.com

August 20, 2014May 29, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 26 Comments

AllWinner A31 Android & Linux SDKs, and Documentation Leaked

AllWinner A31 software development kits (SDK) for Android 4.2 / 4.4 and Linux can now be downloaded, and relevant documentation has also been made available, including HummingBird A31 system brief and system manual. Part of the documentation is in English, but lots of it, is in Chinese only. Download links to AllWinner A31 SDKs for HummingBird A31 development board, but they may be useful for other hardware platforms based on AllWinner A31: Android 4.4 SDK (password: 5ck9) – a31_v4.5_hummingbird_kfb_ok.tar.gz (6.04 GB) Android 4.2 SDK (password: tz17) – a31_hummbingbird_V3.3_v2_kfb_0k.tar.gz (3.99 GB) Linux SDK (password: kdcw) – A31_MerriiLinux_V3.3_v1.tar.gz (1.17 GB) There are also links to firmware files specific to HummingBird: Android 4.4 firmware LCD output (password: w1s6) Android 4.2 firmware LCD output (password: b7de) Android 4.2 firmware VGA output (password: nfqw) Linux firmware (password: ibal) It takes a very long time to download the SDKs, so I haven’t checked the files, and […]

August 12, 2014September 23, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

How to Upgrade Firmware in Rockchip RK3288, RK3328, RK3399 Android TV Boxes

For some reasons, Rockchip is extremely fond of Windows based firmware tools, and instead of providing a simple SD card method, they’ve continued to use these awful tools to upgrade firmware for Rockchip RK3288, RK3328, RK3399 devices, and other Rockchip based TV boxes. I don’t mean to say these are useless, but they should not be used by end users, unless their device is bricked. Nevertheless, Rockchip has now release version 2.3 of their Android tools for Windows, and GeekBuying has published a guide showing how to do, which I’ll summarize below. Rockchip has also released an updated version for the Linux Upgrade Tool (upgrade_tool) v1.24 that allows you to do the update in Linux. [Update: The latest versions of DriverAssistant (Step 1) and AndroidTool (Step 2) can be found in Rockchip-Linux account in Github] The first thing to do is to make sure you’ve got the latest Rockchip USB […]

July 28, 2014July 28, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Rockchip RK3288 Beta Firmware Release for Unnamed Android TV Box

The whole activity around the upcoming media players based on Rockchip RK3288 is pretty interesting, or some would say amusing. First, many companies started to release pictures of their boards a few months before their products are actually ready, and now we’ve got a beta Android 4.4 firmware for Rockchip RK3288 for an unknown TV box released via Geekbuying Blog. I’ve read rumors about a Tronsmart Orion R28, so it might be that one, but who knows. Before investigating the content of the firmware, here are the features that we know about the hardware: Based on Rockchip RK3288 quad core Cortex A17 processor System Memory – 2GB RAM (Samsung) Storage – 8GB flash (Kingston) Wi-Fi – AP6330 Wi-fi module The firmware is based on Linux 3.10, the build number is rk3288-eng 4.4.2 KOT49H eng.ant.20140721.164453 test-keys, and the software version RK3288_R_BOX_Android 4.4.2-SDK_v1.0.0_140613. Most people won’t need this, but if developers want […]