firmware

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 83 Comments on WM8850-MID Tablet Firmware Files and Root Instructions

WM8850-MID Tablet Firmware Files and Root Instructions

I’ve bought a noname tablet described as W8850-MID in the Android Settings that did not come rooted, and after several attempts trying to find how to root the tablet I had more or less given up, as tools such as UnlockRoot or OneClickRoot did not work with the device. After not using my tablet for 2 months, I started it again, but it just showed the Android animation forever, and failed to boot to the home screen. So I had to do something and finally managed to find firmware files for the device and root it. I’ll explain the whole process I went through in this post, but basically all you have to know is that if you have the same WM8850-MID tablet as I have (WM8850_MID7_PuZhi_W01_8223), it is fully compatible with Eken W70 and you can just install the latest W70 firmware (v1.10) from Eken support site that comes […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 39 Comments on How to Create a Custom Android Firmware for CX-01 mini PC

How to Create a Custom Android Firmware for CX-01 mini PC

I’ve written a post about updating the firmware on CX-01 mini PC last week. But, this week I’ve been able to go further since I’ve learned some tools available for Telechips TCC8902/TCC8903 firmware files are also compatible with TCC892X firmware files, and it’s possible to extract the firmware, modify/add files in different partitions and repack all this to burn it with FWDN tool. I’ll explain the different steps in this post, and even if you don’t own CX-01 it could be interesting as some of the commands are common to all Android devices. But first: BIG FAT WARNING!!! Although I believe the steps mentioned in this post are safe, and errors can be recovered by using the CX-01 firmware, CX-01 mini PC is not unbrickable, and if I’m wrong your device will become useless and you won’t be able to fix it. I may also mention some tools (but not show […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 40 Comments on How to Upgrade Firmware for CX-01 mini PC

How to Upgrade Firmware for CX-01 mini PC

[WARNING: Although these instructions worked with my hardware (CX-01 bought via Pandawill), it appears to break some CX-01 devices (See comments section), so use these instructions with care] Pandawill finally managed to release CX-01 firmware (234 MB) about a week ago. This firmware can be used for devices with 4 or 8 GB flash memory (2 separate directories). You only need to update the firmware if your device has some serious problems, or if CX-01 gets a proper firmware update (we can always dream…). Once you’ve downloaded ROM for android TV CX-01.rar in a Windows PC, extract it and enter ROM for android TV CX-01 directory. You’ll find 1 file and 1 directory: V1.0-4096-8189_en – Directory for 4GB firmware V1.0-8192-8189_en – Directory for 8GB firmware FWDN_8923.zip – Telechips tools to burn the firmware to flash Extract FWDN_8923.zip, go to vtcdrv directory and install the driver corresponding to your operating system. […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 22 Comments on New Android 4.0.4 Firmwares for Mele A1000 / A2000

New Android 4.0.4 Firmwares for Mele A1000 / A2000

Mele released a new firmware for the Mele A1000, A100 and A2000 Android media players. Here are the download page for Android 4.0 V1.1 (Thanks Fabricio & JP) and the changelog: Update to Android 4.0.4 Fixed problem with Flash Player “black screen” Mouse speed can be set Option to turn on/off the background applications Allowed to set the font size Supports playback of DVD and Blu-Ray ISO files (Files mode) Multiple mouse devices can be used Full-screen playback of online video sources I haven’t had time to try it myself yet, but some people did, and it fixed some of their issues (e.g.  HD multicast video streaming). Tip: Since the whole download process in in Chinese,  “下载” means “download” in Chinese. You’ll have to be patient because the download is slow right now (About 5KB/s on my side). Kimdecent also informed me they’ve released a new firmware for the Mele A1000/A2000 […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments on Raspberry Pi Releases Raspbian SD Card Image Based on Debian Wheezy ARMHF

Raspberry Pi Releases Raspbian SD Card Image Based on Debian Wheezy ARMHF

The Raspberry Pi foundation announced the very first stable release of the Raspbian distribution, which is based on Debian 7.0 “Wheezy” armhf rootfs in order to take advantage of the FPU in Broadcom BCM2835. This distribution offers up to 40% performance improvement on several tasks, and for some specific tasks such as MP3 encoding is can boost the speed by nearly 6 times thanks to hard-float support. It is now the recommended distribution for the Raspberry Pi, runs LXDE environment, and comes with Midori browser, development tools and example source as per the previous Debian distros. omxplayer by gimli (XBMC developer) is also pre-installed in the image, and will allow you to play videos using hardware acceleration. You can download Raspbian via: Bittorrent – 2012-07-15-wheezy-raspbian.zip.torrent HTTP –  2012-07-15-wheezy-raspbian.zip The default credentials are pi / raspberry. Adam Armstrong has run some benchmarks to compare Raspbian (armhf) with the previous Raspberry Pi […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 90 Comments on Mele A1000/A2000 Android 4.0 Image Released

Mele A1000/A2000 Android 4.0 Image Released

At last, a (semi-)official Android 4.0 release (and not a beta) for Mele A1000 and Mele A2000 media players has been released. This release is based on AllWinner Android 4.0 SDK. You can download homlet_4.0_v1.0_20120609_dd.img.lzma or here and dump it to the SD card with dd (Linux) and Win32DiskImager (Windows). It is also available via Bittorrent. There is also another image named homlet_4.0_v1.0_20120609.img.lzma that can be flashed via the Phoenix Utility, but the download link is not available anymore at the moment. Here are the instructions in Linux:

Where you need to replace X in /dev/sdX by the correct letter for your SD card reader. Now insert the SD card in your Mele, and wait until the LED stops blinking, remove the SD card and restart the device. Et voila! The default language is Chinese, so you’ll have to go to the Settings to change the language to your […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 137 Comments on Mele A1000 Android 2.3 STB Unboxing and Review

Mele A1000 Android 2.3 STB Unboxing and Review

I’ve finally received the Mele A1000 media player I ordered 3 weeks ago. I mainly plan to use it as a Linux development platform for Allwinner A10 processor, but today I’ll just post some unboxing pictures and provide some feedback about the Android software running on the box. I received the device in the box below. (Sorry about the picture quality, I took pictures with my smartphone). Once you open the box, you’ll get see the set-top box, related accessories, a (not so useful) user guide in English and Chinese and what looks like a warranty card. Once you unpack everything you get the set-top box, 2.5″ hard drive case, composite cable, remote control (infrared) and 5V power supply. You’ll noticed some buttons on the remote control have markings in Chinese, this is where the user manual can be useful. You may already have seen the box itself (with clearer […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments on ARCHOS G9 Tablets Firmware 4.0.5 Released

ARCHOS G9 Tablets Firmware 4.0.5 Released

Two weeks ago, Archos released the first  firmware for Archos 80 G9 / 101 G9 and A70B supporting Android 4.0.3 (ICS), so it was likely a new one would soon follow to fix a few bugs. Here’s the ChangeLog: Version 4.0.5 – March 22nd, 2012 Wi-Fi: fix slow throughput and disconnections happening on some access points HDMI: solve no sound or no video output issue on some TVs Bluetooth: make sure Bluetooth does not prevent device suspend VPN: fix VPN connection failing Touchscreen: avoid loss of first finger touch while tapping with second finger The update should be done automatically OTA, but alternatively the firmware can be downloaded at http://update.archos.com/9/gen9/gen9_4.0.5/firmware_archos_it4.aos 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

EmbeddedTS embedded systems design