how-to

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 16 Comments on Creating and Flashing an Android Image from Rockchip RK3288 SDK

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:

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

And now create the firmware file:

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

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 16 Comments on How to Build Android 4.4 for Rockchip RK3288 Devices (Tronsmart Orion R28)

How to Build Android 4.4 for Rockchip RK3288 Devices (Tronsmart Orion R28)

After blowing up my ATX power supply, and learning such things as “FULL” power supplies do exists, I finally managed to build Android for Tronsmart Orion R28 using the provided SDK. I haven’t tried to load it on the device yet, but the build could complete successfully after following the steps below in Ubuntu 14.04. The SDK is probably not specific to one device, so it might just also work on other RK3288 TV boxes and tablets. First download Android 4.4 SDK for RK3288, or use the one in the micro SD card provided with the Beta version of R28 Pro and Meta. Install some dependencies:

Extract the SDK:

And build the kernel first: Enter the kernel directory:

Change arch/arm/boot/dts/Makefile to use RK3288 device tree file instead of an RK3188 (may not be needed, but the build failed for me without that change…):

It’s also quite […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 20 Comments on Rockchip RK3288 Android 4.4.2 SDK and Schematics Released for Firefly Board

Rockchip RK3288 Android 4.4.2 SDK and Schematics Released for Firefly Board

Firefly-RK3288 development board was first announced in July. I still don’t have news about availability nor pricing, but the T-Firefly website launched yesterday. They seem do have a nice Wiki, but unfortunately everything is currently in Chinese, except when you go to the download page. You’ll find firmware upgrade_tool for Linux and Windows, the USB drivers for rooting and firmware update, firmware images (Android 4.4.2, Ubuntu 14.04, and dual boot), the board schematics (PDF), and Android KitKat 4.4.2 SDK with U-Boot, Linux, and Android source code, some documentation, XBMC apk (no source) with H.265 hardware decode support for MP4, MOV and MKV container formats. The SDK is available on Bitbucket. I planned to test it, but unfortunately my network connection is very slow (and unstable) to this server, and I failed to retrieve it with git clone. The company also posted the build instructions in Chinese in their website, but […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 24 Comments on Linux (Enlightenment and Lubuntu) in WeTek Play Amlogic TV Box

Linux (Enlightenment and Lubuntu) in WeTek Play Amlogic TV Box

Last week I reviewed WeTek Play, a TV box with two DVB-S2 tuners, powered by Amlogic AML8726-MX dual core ARM Cortex A9 processor, and running Android 4.2, but the company also released several Linux based images including one with Enlightenment window manager, and another, temporary one, with Ubuntu core which allows you to install Lubuntu or Xubuntu with apt-get. There are also working on OpenELEC, but have not released the binary yet. Today, I’ll try the Enlightenment image because it also supports hardware video decoding via Gplay (gstreamer), and show how to install Lubuntu. The instructions below have been done in a computer running Ubuntu 14.04, but a Windows computer can also be used. Download Wetek-Linux.img.bz2 Connect a micro SD card to your computer, extract and flash Wetek-Linux.img: In Linux using a terminal window:

In Windows, extract the image, and use Win32DiskImager to copy the image to your micro SD […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 44 Comments on How to Build and Run Android L 64-bit ARM in QEMU

How to Build and Run Android L 64-bit ARM in QEMU

[Nov, 2014 Update: The method below does not seem to work anymore, but a 64-bit ARM emulator “emulator64-arm64” has now landed in AOSP, and updated instructions are available here]. Most people can’t afford Juno Cortex A57/A53 development board, and mobile processors based on the latest 64-bit ARM cores are only expected by early 2015. But thanks to a small team at Linaro, you can now build and run Android L 64-bit ARM in the latest version of QEMU that supports Aarch64. Alex Bennée, an engineer working for Linaro, wrote a blog post in Linaro’s Core Dump blog explaining the Android emulator is actually based on QEMU,  the differences compared to mainline QEMU, the work they’ve done on Android L at Linaro, and most importantly, provided the basic steps showing how to build and try Android L 64-bit ARM (ARMv8) in QEMU. I’ve just done that, but unfortunately, albeit the builds […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments on XBMC / Kodi 14 Ported to Tizen 3.0 Wayland

XBMC / Kodi 14 Ported to Tizen 3.0 Wayland

XBMC, soon to become Kodi with version 14, is now supported in Linux, Windows, Mac OS X, Android, and iOS. But Kodi 14 may soon support Tizen, as Phil C., a Tizen developer, ported the alpha version of Kodi 14 to Tizen 3.0, and showcased it on an Intel “Bay Trail” NUC powered by Intel Atom E3815 single core processor. Intel 3815 NUC is officially supported by Tizen and an image is available for download, so most of the work was to build Kodi 14 Alpha, install required packages, and configure some scripts. The video below shows XBMC/Kodi 14 UI running on Tizen 3.0, and a video played from YouTube, and after about 3 minutes, he explains how to modify the BIOS to have the system boot and work properly for the rest of the video. If you happen to own an Intel E3815 NUC, but it could also work […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments on How to Upgrade Firmware in Rockchip RK3288, RK3328, RK3399 Android TV Boxes

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 […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 9 Comments on APK Downloader Retrieves an App APK with its Google Play Link

APK Downloader Retrieves an App APK with its Google Play Link

Let’s assume you are unlucky, and frequently end up with Google Play saying “Sorry, this app is not compatible with your device”. The usual way is either to patiently wait for a new firmware, or actually go through Android configuration files to change the behavior by, for instance, emulation a “Samsung Galaxy S4”. It’s also possible you somehow ended up with a device without Google Play. There’s now another solution thanks to APK Downloader. The way it works is that you just go to APK Downloader website, look for the app in Google Play website in your PC or device, copy the URL to APK Downloader website, and click on “Generate Download Click”. After a few seconds, or minutes depending on the APK size you’ll be able to download the APK. I used Antutu for testing as shown in the screenshot above. There’s a total limit of 250 new cached […]

UP 7000 x86 SBC