First of all, I would like to thank and express my great gratitude to this site and personally Max One and Bob Finless. Without them I would never have been inspired such a deep immersion into the world of Android Mini PC.
Two months passed since I don't flash or touch the settings, and just feel joy in use my CX-919 II. In General, my needs and expectations for how this device operating, fulfilled. Could say I have achieved almost fully stable and predictable results. And I wanted to write this text for a long time, assuming that my experience can be useful to other people. But different things constantly delayed this point ) During this time I could forget some subtleties and details - if I wrote something wrong, please correct me!
Let's start the story from begining. When I heard about this type of devices, and, most importantly, about their low prices, I decided to risk and spend a small amount of money. Main task for this device, for me, is possiblity to watch TV without deploying of TV antenna on the brand new apartment, and avoid a monthly fee for it. Because it is generally known, that in modern world more and more content we got through the Internet. First, you can see almost all interesting telecasts from videoarchive, at any time without annoying advertising. Secondly, if you are interested in additional information on some event, you can instantly switch to web browser. In third, there are a great number of TV content and channels available through the Internet, including foreign countries. You can learn different points of view for important accidents and events. Fourthly, if you are interested in some rare old shows or movies, You can downloaded them with torrents too.
Do not think I haven't a desktop computer or notebook. But keep your computer switched on all the time just for watching TV, or touch a keyboard, use mouse... it's kinda strange. Not to mention the fact that the Windows interface isn't very well suited to work with TV on a considerable distance.
So, I chose the most advanced device at that moment, CX-919, with a Quad core processor. My wife, as she has greater experience with ordering goods from China, decided to choose CX-919 II (she thought it is better, advanced model, we did not know all the intricacies of the firmware at that moment). Also we ordered AirMouse combined with a keyboard with Russian letters pre-marked:
We have got our order very quickly, about two weeks, right before the New Year (2014). Firmware 4.2.2 also, in general, was good, quite useful.
But in addition to the basic tasks, watching TV (with help of app Torrent Stream Controller + AceStream Engine - nearly 500 Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian channels available), I wanted more -
- wanted to experiment with a native resolution of 1080 (full HD);
- I wanted to connect 64 GB SDXC card, I boughted before;
- I wanted more stable work of the torrent, because operating original firmware download speed could suddenly drop and then a few hours to be very low, almost zero.
Incidentally, I din't managed to solve this problem completely. Download now is much better, in any case, you can wait for the download of the movie for a predictable time, but the Windows PC, and even my old Android tablet leeches faster and more stable. Now I doubt, may be it's hardware problem of RK3188 chip?
Furthermore, even before the first experiments and rooting something happened to the device - it lost access to internal NAND Flash. Despite the fact that I had a external memory card too, still many programs did not work correctly without NAND (for example, the Browser refused to save files)
In general, I decided to try the KitKat firmware - beta-version first. Let me not be offended Finless and wasser, but I liked Ugoos firmware.
The one I was finally chose, I believe, is called
720p_allminipc_cx919ii_rk3188_4.4.kitkat23.04.2014 .img
Perhaps, on this website - http://ugoos.net/downloads there are more modern firmware, but I want to feel a joy with the device, not flash all the time )
Why I stopped at 720p ? Because it was not a priority for me to watch movies and programs in native 1080p resolution. In addition, icons and elements of the interface becomes harder to work with them from afar. Also, I thought the quality of common telecasts in 1080 looks a little coarse...
In any case, at 1080 firmware I didn't even notice problems like the "blinking" screen, broken Wifi, etc.
Why I didn't like the Finless and other beta firmware -
- the impression of using - they are not intended for Mini PC-devices at all, there is no special convenient interface elements, etc.
- a lot of small bugs, for example, through AirMouse RC11 volume buttons don't work (very strange behavior)
- when I watch movies or TV show (MX Player), I have opinion, that Gamma not installed properly (too dark areas of the image)
- there was a strange stops and hangs when working
Of course, firmware from Ugoos - AllMiniPC has its drawbacks also. First, I immediately switched to standard Android launcher, as these ugly icons from "LauncherNew" (Music, Video, etc) look just creepy. The most important thing - CPUs operate at maximum frequency of 1416 Mhz (AnTuTu - 14307) and it seems it's impossible to fix it with this firmware. It's kinda slow
). On the original firmware it was 1600mhz, (more than 16000 AnTuTu points). RK chip utility (I think I downloaded it from this site) showed that I have a normal CPU version, not "T".
But the main thing for me is to fulfill my tasks, not numbers. In my opinion, device is working on the firmware from AllMiniPC works smoother and with less "strange things". But we must mention one thing - about once every two days, the device restarts unexpectedly )
What is most troublesome with stock, no custom firmware? Of course, to gain root!
I managed to got it with all known programs - Moborobo and Kingo Android Root. Instructions how to do this have been written many times on different sites. I can only say that after getting root You will have to uninstall remaining apps-clients in the device, beause they tend to remind or download something )
Also there is a nuance - Mini PC must be connected to the TV BEFORE connecting to the computer! Why? Because it is necessary to check "Connect to PC" in the Settings -> USB. This setting is reset every time the power goes out (on my device), so you should first connect the Mini PC via HDMI to the TV, then connect the power supply, enable "Connect to PC" switch, and finally, connect to the Windoze-PC with running Moborobo to download Kingo Root.
All these difficulties is necessary to obtain Root only. If you just want to flash Your device, it's no need! (no need Moborobo, no need to "Connect to PC" - because the device is in special mode for firmware download. You have to hold sidebutton for enter this mode)
Why I need Root? The most important thing is to be able to use the 64 GB card! MiniPC consumes little power, not noisy, you can use it for seeding torrents in "always on" mode. So if you want to store more files - it would be good to have a large memory card.
As is known, SD card 32 GB and 64 GB differ only file system!
In 64 GB version there is exFAT file system, developed by Microsoft. And is not free!
Sad, but true! )
Therefore, Android does not support exFAT. What can we do?
You can format the card with NTFS. But NTFS is not the native filesystem for Linux, Android, and you might also could not get it to work.
In addition, NTFS - journaling file system, and so not recommended for memory cards with a limited number of write cycles.
So I decided to choose the old good ext2. If you want (in rare cases) to read the card on the PC, there is a very nice program Ext2Fsd for Windows that allows you to mount and read-write ext2, ext3 and even ext4 partitions.
But.. Oh, horror! Even SDXC card preformated with ext2 could not be recognized by CX-919! It is not mounted by Android automatically!
So, I had to write such a script (You need to create the directory /mnt/external_sd - it will be mountpoint for card):
After you run this script card will be not just visible (for example, Ghost Commander) but also the files will be available when scanning in any media players (n7player, BSPlayer), etc.
In order not to run the script each time, it would be nice to run it at startup. How to do this?
Remember - we have firmware from AllMiniPC, and unlike custom firmware by Bob Finless, there is no init.d support!
Fortunately, after Kingo Root made his task, we have the great file - /system/etc/install-recovery-2.sh
So you can write there (edit this file!)
And all of the scripts that we put in the /system/etc/init.d will be performed when the device boots!
Unfortunately, the downside of working with ext2 is that those files that have downloaded with one program (for example, torrent) may be invisible to others (e.g. media player). Therefore, every time your ext2 SDXC card has a new directory, you will have to give full access to this folder and files, recursively -
Or you can create the script (and save it with the name, say, "/system/xbin/FA"), which will give full access to all files on the SDXC card
Just be careful! It's often n Android environment that something one time workes perfectly, but fails at another time.
So once this script damaged me my ext2 filesystem a little.
So it is better to say, just in case, that under the path /sbin/e2fsck lies utility that can repair ext2 partitions.
What else you can think of? For example, using app Torrent Stream Controller, you need the special folder for cache to the video TV files in real time. But if You keep TV running every day for hours, it's pity for a SD card, that has to be written large volumes of information so often.
There is a solution! You can make a virtual RAM disk, which will reserve a small portion of the device memory and on which you can write as many data as You want (of course, after a reboot, this information will be lost, but it doesn't matter if used for cache purposes).
In short, You can put such a script in /system/etc/init.d
Then you can specify in the AceStream settings to use the folder /mnt/rammedia/AceCache as cache (You can increade buffer size to 60 seconds)
Well.. Also to improve leeching the torrents, etc. You can try to put in /system/etc/init.d following script (with any file name, of course)
(the method of increasing buffers I peeped from Bob Finless too).
Well, it seems this is all what I want to say.
To create scripts, browse and manage files on the Mini PC, I recommend Ghost Commander and Terminal Emulator
By the way, Ghost Commander has very convenient toolbutton - "Remount /System", which allows switch the /system folder to write mode - ie does the same thing as command
I hope this text helps somebody.
Yours,
Philip J. AKA LightBulb
Two months passed since I don't flash or touch the settings, and just feel joy in use my CX-919 II. In General, my needs and expectations for how this device operating, fulfilled. Could say I have achieved almost fully stable and predictable results. And I wanted to write this text for a long time, assuming that my experience can be useful to other people. But different things constantly delayed this point ) During this time I could forget some subtleties and details - if I wrote something wrong, please correct me!
Let's start the story from begining. When I heard about this type of devices, and, most importantly, about their low prices, I decided to risk and spend a small amount of money. Main task for this device, for me, is possiblity to watch TV without deploying of TV antenna on the brand new apartment, and avoid a monthly fee for it. Because it is generally known, that in modern world more and more content we got through the Internet. First, you can see almost all interesting telecasts from videoarchive, at any time without annoying advertising. Secondly, if you are interested in additional information on some event, you can instantly switch to web browser. In third, there are a great number of TV content and channels available through the Internet, including foreign countries. You can learn different points of view for important accidents and events. Fourthly, if you are interested in some rare old shows or movies, You can downloaded them with torrents too.
Do not think I haven't a desktop computer or notebook. But keep your computer switched on all the time just for watching TV, or touch a keyboard, use mouse... it's kinda strange. Not to mention the fact that the Windows interface isn't very well suited to work with TV on a considerable distance.
So, I chose the most advanced device at that moment, CX-919, with a Quad core processor. My wife, as she has greater experience with ordering goods from China, decided to choose CX-919 II (she thought it is better, advanced model, we did not know all the intricacies of the firmware at that moment). Also we ordered AirMouse combined with a keyboard with Russian letters pre-marked:
We have got our order very quickly, about two weeks, right before the New Year (2014). Firmware 4.2.2 also, in general, was good, quite useful.
But in addition to the basic tasks, watching TV (with help of app Torrent Stream Controller + AceStream Engine - nearly 500 Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian channels available), I wanted more -
- wanted to experiment with a native resolution of 1080 (full HD);
- I wanted to connect 64 GB SDXC card, I boughted before;
- I wanted more stable work of the torrent, because operating original firmware download speed could suddenly drop and then a few hours to be very low, almost zero.
Incidentally, I din't managed to solve this problem completely. Download now is much better, in any case, you can wait for the download of the movie for a predictable time, but the Windows PC, and even my old Android tablet leeches faster and more stable. Now I doubt, may be it's hardware problem of RK3188 chip?
Furthermore, even before the first experiments and rooting something happened to the device - it lost access to internal NAND Flash. Despite the fact that I had a external memory card too, still many programs did not work correctly without NAND (for example, the Browser refused to save files)
In general, I decided to try the KitKat firmware - beta-version first. Let me not be offended Finless and wasser, but I liked Ugoos firmware.
The one I was finally chose, I believe, is called
720p_allminipc_cx919ii_rk3188_4.4.kitkat23.04.2014 .img
Perhaps, on this website - http://ugoos.net/downloads there are more modern firmware, but I want to feel a joy with the device, not flash all the time )
Why I stopped at 720p ? Because it was not a priority for me to watch movies and programs in native 1080p resolution. In addition, icons and elements of the interface becomes harder to work with them from afar. Also, I thought the quality of common telecasts in 1080 looks a little coarse...
In any case, at 1080 firmware I didn't even notice problems like the "blinking" screen, broken Wifi, etc.
Why I didn't like the Finless and other beta firmware -
- the impression of using - they are not intended for Mini PC-devices at all, there is no special convenient interface elements, etc.
- a lot of small bugs, for example, through AirMouse RC11 volume buttons don't work (very strange behavior)
- when I watch movies or TV show (MX Player), I have opinion, that Gamma not installed properly (too dark areas of the image)
- there was a strange stops and hangs when working
Of course, firmware from Ugoos - AllMiniPC has its drawbacks also. First, I immediately switched to standard Android launcher, as these ugly icons from "LauncherNew" (Music, Video, etc) look just creepy. The most important thing - CPUs operate at maximum frequency of 1416 Mhz (AnTuTu - 14307) and it seems it's impossible to fix it with this firmware. It's kinda slow
). On the original firmware it was 1600mhz, (more than 16000 AnTuTu points). RK chip utility (I think I downloaded it from this site) showed that I have a normal CPU version, not "T".But the main thing for me is to fulfill my tasks, not numbers. In my opinion, device is working on the firmware from AllMiniPC works smoother and with less "strange things". But we must mention one thing - about once every two days, the device restarts unexpectedly )
What is most troublesome with stock, no custom firmware? Of course, to gain root!
I managed to got it with all known programs - Moborobo and Kingo Android Root. Instructions how to do this have been written many times on different sites. I can only say that after getting root You will have to uninstall remaining apps-clients in the device, beause they tend to remind or download something )
Also there is a nuance - Mini PC must be connected to the TV BEFORE connecting to the computer! Why? Because it is necessary to check "Connect to PC" in the Settings -> USB. This setting is reset every time the power goes out (on my device), so you should first connect the Mini PC via HDMI to the TV, then connect the power supply, enable "Connect to PC" switch, and finally, connect to the Windoze-PC with running Moborobo to download Kingo Root.
All these difficulties is necessary to obtain Root only. If you just want to flash Your device, it's no need! (no need Moborobo, no need to "Connect to PC" - because the device is in special mode for firmware download. You have to hold sidebutton for enter this mode)
Why I need Root? The most important thing is to be able to use the 64 GB card! MiniPC consumes little power, not noisy, you can use it for seeding torrents in "always on" mode. So if you want to store more files - it would be good to have a large memory card.
As is known, SD card 32 GB and 64 GB differ only file system!
In 64 GB version there is exFAT file system, developed by Microsoft. And is not free!
Sad, but true! )
Therefore, Android does not support exFAT. What can we do?
You can format the card with NTFS. But NTFS is not the native filesystem for Linux, Android, and you might also could not get it to work.
In addition, NTFS - journaling file system, and so not recommended for memory cards with a limited number of write cycles.
So I decided to choose the old good ext2. If you want (in rare cases) to read the card on the PC, there is a very nice program Ext2Fsd for Windows that allows you to mount and read-write ext2, ext3 and even ext4 partitions.
But.. Oh, horror! Even SDXC card preformated with ext2 could not be recognized by CX-919! It is not mounted by Android automatically!
So, I had to write such a script (You need to create the directory /mnt/external_sd - it will be mountpoint for card):
Code:
#!/system/bin/sh mount -wo remount rootfs / chmod 777 /mnt/external_sd chown system:sdcard_rw /mnt/external_sd ln -s /mnt/external_sd /storage/sdcard1 mount -ro remount rootfs / mount -o rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,noatime,nodiratime,async,nobh,errors=remount-ro -t ext2 /dev/block/mmcblk0p1 /mnt/external_sd setprop EXTERNAL_STORAGE_STATE mounted am broadcast -a android.intent.action.MEDIA_MOUNTED --ez read-only false -d file:///mnt/external_sd
After you run this script card will be not just visible (for example, Ghost Commander) but also the files will be available when scanning in any media players (n7player, BSPlayer), etc.
In order not to run the script each time, it would be nice to run it at startup. How to do this?
Remember - we have firmware from AllMiniPC, and unlike custom firmware by Bob Finless, there is no init.d support!
Fortunately, after Kingo Root made his task, we have the great file - /system/etc/install-recovery-2.sh
So you can write there (edit this file!)
Code:
#!/system/bin/sh /system/bin/busybox run-parts /system/etc/init.d
Unfortunately, the downside of working with ext2 is that those files that have downloaded with one program (for example, torrent) may be invisible to others (e.g. media player). Therefore, every time your ext2 SDXC card has a new directory, you will have to give full access to this folder and files, recursively -
Code:
chomd -R 777 /mnt/external_sd/my_directory_path
Code:
#!/system/bin/sh chomd -R 777 /mnt/external_sd
So once this script damaged me my ext2 filesystem a little.
So it is better to say, just in case, that under the path /sbin/e2fsck lies utility that can repair ext2 partitions.
What else you can think of? For example, using app Torrent Stream Controller, you need the special folder for cache to the video TV files in real time. But if You keep TV running every day for hours, it's pity for a SD card, that has to be written large volumes of information so often.
There is a solution! You can make a virtual RAM disk, which will reserve a small portion of the device memory and on which you can write as many data as You want (of course, after a reboot, this information will be lost, but it doesn't matter if used for cache purposes).
In short, You can put such a script in /system/etc/init.d
Code:
#!/system/bin/sh mount -wo remount rootfs / mkdir /mnt/rammedia chmod 777 /mnt/rammedia mount -ro remount rootfs / mount -t tmpfs -o size=150M,mode=777 tmpfs /mnt/rammedia mkdir /mnt/rammedia/AceCache chmod 6777 /mnt/rammedia/AceCache
Then you can specify in the AceStream settings to use the folder /mnt/rammedia/AceCache as cache (You can increade buffer size to 60 seconds)
Well.. Also to improve leeching the torrents, etc. You can try to put in /system/etc/init.d following script (with any file name, of course)
Code:
#!/system/bin/sh setprop net.tcp.buffersize.wifi "2097152, 4194304, 8388608, 524288, 1048576, 2097152" setprop net.tcp.buffersize.default "2097152, 4194304, 8388608, 524288, 1048576, 2097152"
Well, it seems this is all what I want to say.
To create scripts, browse and manage files on the Mini PC, I recommend Ghost Commander and Terminal Emulator
By the way, Ghost Commander has very convenient toolbutton - "Remount /System", which allows switch the /system folder to write mode - ie does the same thing as command
Code:
mount -wo remount ext4 /system
I hope this text helps somebody.
Yours,
Philip J. AKA LightBulb
.gif "HELL YEA!!")
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