Do you want to flash your rom using cwm recovery? take a look here.

[Andromoid]

https://github.com/omegamoon/rockchip-rk30xx-mk808

https://github.com/aloksinha2001/picuntu-3.0.8-alok

https://github.com/AndrewDB/rk3066-kernel

I can help you with the basic, but i am not an expertise, an all i have are general knowledges.
To understand better this devices i can suggest you to take a look at:

http://www.freaktab.com/showthread.php?3801-We-need-a-general-TV-Player-FAQ!-Contest-for-contributors-)&p=54225&viewfull=1#post54225

http://www.freaktab.com/showthread.php?3801-We-need-a-general-TV-Player-FAQ!-Contest-for-contributors-)&p=54242&viewfull=1#post54242

Here you can made a idea of partitions structure of the nand in this devices and the partitions present in this devices.
Another thread with a lot of useful info is:

http://www.freaktab.com/showthread.php?287-RockChip-ROM-Building-Tips-and-Tricks-by-Finless

Thanks for those starting points, I'll go through it.

About cwm scrips are made using edify scripts, so once we learn a bit about it, we can make those scripts.

If those scripts include the ability to write raw sectors, it could target the partitioning table(s?). I could be way off here.

About boot process this devices uses the bootloader, and then, dependind what is in misc partition the bootloader chooses boot o recovery way. In the recovery partition there is a kernel(usually) with his initramfs.

I would think that it has to have its own kernel otherwise it has no low functionality to build on. It wouldn't be able to do anything other than executing machine language and accessing I/O ports and such.

If bootloader choose normal boot it loads boot partition and the kernel that exist in kernel partition.

I gather that some devices choose to load the kernel from a kernel partition, and that some other ones, like the MK808 series (possibly other RK ones probably) embed the kernel in the boot partition.
I just wonder if a boot partition really is a "partition" and that the kernel partition really is a "partition". Could it be a file in another partition that is simply loop-back mounted? This is what I'm not yet understanding, the low level structure on disk and how everything is stored.

[leolas]

Re: Do you want to flash your rom using cwm recovery? take a look here.

No, i can asure you that kernel and boot partitions exist both, they are independent mtd pattitions in nand.

[petrus]

Thanks for those starting points, I'll go through it.


If those scripts include the ability to write raw sectors, it could target the partitioning table(s?). I could be way off here.


I would think that it has to have its own kernel otherwise it has no low functionality to build on. It wouldn't be able to do anything other than executing machine language and accessing I/O ports and such.


I gather that some devices choose to load the kernel from a kernel partition, and that some other ones, like the MK808 series (possibly other RK ones probably) embed the kernel in the boot partition.
I just wonder if a boot partition really is a "partition" and that the kernel partition really is a "partition". Could it be a file in another partition that is simply loop-back mounted? This is what I'm not yet understanding, the low level structure on disk and how everything is stored.

My 2 cents : even if you know linux, don't assume anything you know about the linux boot process to be true for android. There are a lot of things that are the same, but android is meant for devices that have to be reliable, even if it means fewer functions. So you won't have the same flexibility in linux and android.

That's it.

If you can't stand this, just flash ubuntu touch os, and complain about it's 'unfinished state'

or buy a windows 8 device. It may be better for you.

[Andromoid]

My 2 cents : even if you know linux, don't assume anything you know about the linux boot process to be true for android. There are a lot of things that are the same, but android is meant for devices that have to be reliable, even if it means fewer functions. So you won't have the same flexibility in linux and android.

I'm not assuming anything. I'm trying to logically think through how things could work, and use that to see if I can find a path that leads me to how it really works. I draw conclusions from the knowledge that others might reveal in discussions like this. There doesn't appear to be any good central run-down that explains all of this. It seems that most people pick the brains of others in forums. I have no choice but to do the same.
In an effort to help, I'm planning on contributing a document that will serve as a starting point for the next person like me that is eager to learn how things work. I'm making notes on where I'm finding useful bits. Do you have any links that might be helpful? Something about the boot process and partitioning would be very helpful.

If you can't stand this, just flash ubuntu touch os, and complain about it's 'unfinished state'

or buy a windows 8 device. It may be better for you.

No silly! The thought of making a Linux die hard use Windows... as if... ;-)
Let's see what we can get out of Android! I'm curious to find out what knowledge you have about it....

[petrus]

I'm not assuming anything. I'm trying to logically think through how things could work, and use that to see if I can find a path that leads me to how it really works. I draw conclusions from the knowledge that others might reveal in discussions like this. There doesn't appear to be any good central run-down that explains all of this. It seems that most people pick the brains of others in forums. I have no choice but to do the same.
In an effort to help, I'm planning on contributing a document that will serve as a starting point for the next person like me that is eager to learn how things work. I'm making notes on where I'm finding useful bits. Do you have any links that might be helpful? Something about the boot process and partitioning would be very helpful.


No silly! The thought of making a Linux die hard use Windows... as if... ;-)
Let's see what we can get out of Android! I'm curious to find out what knowledge you have about it....

Oops, sorry about this last comment. Just re-read it today, and I really shouldn't write when I'm angry. I spent some time on xda, and was fed up with trolls, so my words after that were harder than I meant.

About the boot process, you can find valuable information here : http://elinux.org/Android_Booting

[Andromoid]

*

Hi Petrus, thanks for the link. I also found Leolas' faq contribution. I'm finding out more and more. Another shocking thing I found out after Leolas' power supply article, is that I'm finding out that that might have been plaguing me as well. This led to a whole bunch of incorrect speculation and me fowling up some message threads. I might have left the impression that there was something wrong with the ROM or kernel and then started to speculate. After me trying out an alternative, weaker, power supply for my cell phone, the MK808B did start, but was even more unstable. I then put the original power supply back and tried out some different USB cables. It made it slightly more stable - and consistently! Weird. But certain apps still crash. It seems that during some sort of screen switches, and for some other things, whenever there is a sudden power drain, that the power supply collapses, causing crashes and reboots. Stunning to know that Shenzhen Tomato (I think they're the manufacturer for these things?) put out like 10s of thousands of things on the market, all potentially with the same darn bug: a really crappy cheesy power supply. I looked inside the power supply. It's just embarrassing. Really thin wires connected to 110V, never seen that before. You do that in electric engineering class and you'd get an automatic F for sure! Transformer, it's literally PUNY! 2A? Noway hosay! Plus a ton of capacitors and other unnecessary crap inside. What a weird power supply. The darn thing looks like a radio.

Anyway. I think at some point, once I know enough, I'd like to help contribute to solidify and enrich to a FAQ / Intro doc and suggest it to be the top sticky thread. That way, anyone walking in can get the low-down real quick. I'm thinking something more visual. Pictures, arrows. Do images with clickable regions work on this forum?

[Andromoid]

Andromoid, extesive but a really well explained posts. First tell you that android is based on Linux, but android is not Linux exactly.
About your stability problems I suggest you a good power suply unit, the one who comes with the device is a really bad one, it said 2A and I dude it can apport 1A. Bad quality PSU give us stability problems and give noises to the circuit board.
There are some threads here about the WiFi problems, and some mods suggestions. So I suggest you read them, but like I said before a good PSU affect in how WiFi will work.
There are some people working in custom kernel for mk808b, once we can do that, we can add all filesystem we want to the kernel.
If you are a Linux guy I suggest you read a little about picuntu, Linux working in our devices.
Ifi can help only tell me.

Leolas. One message up, I explained to Petrus that, yes, the power supply is absolutely crap.

I did not initially buy your claim, because I had a hard time believing that the power grid's noise, or whatever noise the devices in the house would introduce, would have any effect. I'm convinced that that type of noise gets completely flattened out through a few basic capacitors and by a possible/likely voltage regulator that the power supply would have.

What I think is that the device's power consumption spikes up when entering something heavy. That spike collapses the power supply to a point where the cpu literally crashes. Sometimes, the task crashes and the Android overall recovers, sometimes it causes a complete freeze, and sometimes it causes a reboot. It seems the CPU behaves randomly when the power literally gets nuked from underneath. The power supply has to be able to quickly supply a big increase in power (amps) without dropping voltage. I bet if one were to hook up a scanner / oscilloscope of sorts, you'd see just before a crash, that the voltage drops at the exact same time. This might be provable using a resistor + capacitor and feeding it straight into a sound card, and just view it in a sound recording app. Maybe adding a big capacitor might do the trick. In fact, I think I will try this. Still going to buy a PS Vita power supply probably though.
The new intro doc should totally show a picture of the power supply with a big red cross through it, surrounded with stop signs... right up front first thing you see.

[leolas]

Re: Do you want to flash your rom using cwm recovery? take a look here.

Hi Petrus, thanks for the link. I also found Leolas' faq contribution. I'm finding out more and more. Another shocking thing I found out after Leolas' power supply article, is that I'm finding out that that might have been plaguing me as well. This led to a whole bunch of incorrect speculation and me fowling up some message threads. I might have left the impression that there was something wrong with the ROM or kernel and then started to speculate. After me trying out an alternative, weaker, power supply for my cell phone, the MK808B did start, but was even more unstable. I then put the original power supply back and tried out some different USB cables. It made it slightly more stable - and consistently! Weird. But certain apps still crash. It seems that during some sort of screen switches, and for some other things, whenever there is a sudden power drain, that the power supply collapses, causing crashes and reboots. Stunning to know that Shenzhen Tomato (I think they're the manufacturer for these things?) put out like 10s of thousands of things on the market, all potentially with the same darn bug: a really crappy cheesy power supply. I looked inside the power supply. It's just embarrassing. Really thin wires connected to 110V, never seen that before. You do that in electric engineering class and you'd get an automatic F for sure! Transformer, it's literally PUNY! 2A? Noway hosay! Plus a ton of capacitors and other unnecessary crap inside. What a weird power supply. The darn thing looks like a radio.

Anyway. I think at some point, once I know enough, I'd like to help contribute to solidify and enrich to a FAQ / Intro doc and suggest it to be the top sticky thread. That way, anyone walking in can get the low-down real quick. I'm thinking something more visual. Pictures, arrows. Do images with clickable regions work on this forum?

All contributions are welcome, we are going a little offtopic, but those psu that comes with our devices are really crap, a psvita psu for 10$ and you will have a very stable and cheap psu, to use it you need to broke some fine plastics in the usb connector, but I assure you that my mk808b is completely different since I switch the psu time ago, no more nand corruption, better WiFi, and the stability is awesome. If it works for me it can work for you, believe me, I was to throw the stick to the dustbin cause all this problems.

[Andromoid]

Leolas. I reported in another thread, that after buying an PS Vita as you suggested, that that indeed very much completely seems to have addressed the instability issues. I'm still a little stunned. But it really is very real. Potentially 10s of thousands of gadgets... all flawed and unstable... one word: wauw. But fixable!

[leolas]

Leolas. I reported in another thread, that after buying an PS Vita as you suggested, that that indeed very much completely seems to have addressed the instability issues. I'm still a little stunned. But it really is very real. Potentially 10s of thousands of gadgets... all flawed and unstable... one word: wauw. But fixable!

Nice, Sure that There are a lot of good PSU, but I always suggest the psvita one cause is cheap, you can find it in any country and I tested it , and for me works. Sure that some units of this sticks have real hardware problems, the quality controls in this cheap gadgets are weak, but a lot of problems with them sure can be solved with a little inversion. Now time to enjoy your new toy.

[bluesmanuk]

I've had a good play with this today and have managed to flash 3 other ROM's without any real issues.

Once when rebooting to recovery, the external SD card would not mount to enable me to access a zip file but on rebooting and then powering off first, it was there the next time.

On one occasion after the flash was complete, CWM took me back to the main screen, highlighting the reboot system option, which I was used to seeing after a successful flash but on two other ROM's, there was instead a successful message at the bottom of the screen but I had to use the go back option to get back to reboot into the new ROM.

Very minor things indeed that don't detract from the key purpose, so many thanks for the guide as it will be of great use

[finrodize]

Re: Do you want to flash your rom using cwm recovery? take a look here.

will this also work on 3188 based stticks?

[peety]

Advice please

leolas, some advice please if you would...I have the cx919 with finless 4.2 and the generic CWM installed. .In reading the thread what I undrstand is my stick does not have kernel in revocovery? But I saw you have a cwm zip with empty img What I want to do is use that and try a different kernel that supposedly fixs video stuttering. But I would like to do it without wiping my current rom/data. So would that be possible with your zip? Thanks much.

[leolas]

Re: Do you want to flash your rom using cwm recovery? take a look here.

leolas, some advice please if you would...I have the cx919 with finless 4.2 and the generic CWM installed. .In reading the thread what I undrstand is my stick does not have kernel in revocovery? But I saw you have a cwm zip with empty img What I want to do is use that and try a different kernel that supposedly fixs video stuttering. But I would like to do it without wiping my current rom/data. So would that be possible with your zip? Thanks much.

Sorry, but I dont know, I can make a cwm recovery with your kernel if you want. But you must wait cause tomorrow I leave home and I will be out for some time. So no access to pc for some time.

leolas

[irishpancake]

Nice, Sure that There are a lot of good PSU, but I always suggest the psvita one cause is cheap, you can find it in any country and I tested it , and for me works. Sure that some units of this sticks have real hardware problems, the quality controls in this cheap gadgets are weak, but a lot of problems with them sure can be solved with a little inversion. Now time to enjoy your new toy.

Interesting reading guys, my first post, please be gentle!!!

Just on power supply, I was wondering if something like this would be useful: link below...

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Switching-Ch...dp/B006JXOROC/

• Input: 0.5A
• Output: 2A
• Products specifically for iPad to support the power supply problems; principle is the power output of the current upgrade to the DC 5V 2A and fit for the iPad of The charge requirements.
• Usage: put the usb port ipad charging line inserted into the switching power plug, then the usb port insert in relevant charging equipment that can charge for ipad products.

Also, interesting discussion about the cheaper alternatives for PS Vita charging!!!

http://psindependent.com/threads/what-does-the-ps-vita-charge-at-amp.2830/page-1

Hope you find these useful....