June 4th, 2011

By finndo On June 4, 2011 · 2 Comments

Lots of things going on, not enough time to tell about them. I am still running the Beast Rom v2.2.1 on my Notion Ink Adam, and not having any issues to complain about, I have used UnrEvoked on my HTC Evo to root it, removed the [...]

Lots of things going on, not enough time to tell about them. I am still running the Beast Rom v2.2.1 on my Notion Ink Adam, and not having any issues to complain about, I have used UnrEvoked on my HTC Evo to root it, removed the Sprint apps I didn’t want and started backing up with Clockwork Mod and Titanium Backup. Still running Ubuntu 10.10 x64 exclusively on my desktop, I’ve been working on learning Java and think I’m picking it up pretty quick, although there are nuances I still do not have down. Maybe after 4-6 months I’ll take an intermediate level course on Java and see if they can tell me the small things I am missing from not having an instructor. Some time around January I’ll start learning Android specifics, by then I should be getting up to speed on java graphics and UI interfaces, right now I am just doing console coding.

I lost a large quantity of data from my drives last week, there appears to be an issue with my external drive caddy, when I bootup sometimes one of the drives is not recognized, normally a reboot operation clears it right up. Last week I shut my systems down for a bad storm, in case we lost power for an extended time as the storm was about 2am. Well during startup it had no issue finding the drive that normally didn’t startup, but it did do a disk consistency check, which happens every now and then and no big deal I thought. A few hours after that I went to startup my virtual machine so I could work on my java code and VMware told me some VM drives were missing, I didn’t think much of it, as I had been rearranging and deleting some old VMs recently and started up my Android-SDK VM, launched Eclipse (I move to using Eclipse instead of Appcellerator’s Titanium Mobile Developer, because It has a code editor and Appcellerator decided not to include one…) Well it couldn’t find my files, so I started looking and my data store drive was there, had files in it, but all of my directories were missing!

First things first, I rebooted, thinking there was an issue mounting during startup, well it was the same when it came back up. I checked the trash, in case I accidentally deleted them, nothing was there. I moved to a terminal session and checked the drive space on my mounts and saw there was 173GB of data on my 1TB drive, but no files to show for it (previously there was over 750GB of data on the drive). Well I found a large portion of them in a .trash-1000 folder, not sure about most of you, but I copy every CD I’ve ever gotten since 1997 on to my hard drive as a backup, well that was the end of my backups for a large bit of it. Two days later I found another 140GB on my old Windows 7 boot drive that I apparently copied off of, but never removed the original. So I’m out about 55-65% of my backup data, most of which the CD’s are either missing or damaged beyond use. Probably 60-80% of my backups are either things I have never actually used, or only installed to see what it did, then uninstalled it. So I am not really out too much, just makes me feel empty inside… Most of what I lost that I actually use were my Microsoft disks, having been a Microsoft partner for about 4 years and working a lot with Virtual Machines I had everything stored in .iso format, and about 2 years ago Microsoft moved to .iso format and I was keeping up with all available software via the download site. So I basically lost everything that was released by MS in the last 2 years and since I am no longer a MS partner I no longer have access to those downloads. (this includes Win7 and Office 2010) I guess it is a good idea that I don’t run windows as my OS anymore!

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Unable to update my Notion Ink Adam

By finndo On May 8, 2011 · 7 Comments

Having an issue since I tried to flash from Beast v2.2 to Beast 2.2.1, I don’t think it is Caused by Beast, but I did not have any issue previously and I have been through a couple of roms now… as a note I am using Ubuntu [...]

Having an issue since I tried to flash from Beast v2.2 to Beast 2.2.1, I don’t think it is Caused by Beast, but I did not have any issue previously and I have been through a couple of roms now… as a note I am using Ubuntu 10.10 x64 on my desktop and also have a laptop with U10.10 32-bit dual-booting into win7 x64, although I try to never boot into windows. I have a microSD to SD converter that I plug into a SD to USB converter to copy files to the card.

  1. I copied the file to my 32GB MicroSD
  2. restarted into recovery mode
  3. wiped the cache and data
  4. restarted again (had to boot into v2.2 and renamed it to update.zip, as I have not reinstalled Clockwork since I left EdenX)
  5. restarted into recovery mode again
  6. wiped the cache and data
  7. selected update from external SD
  8. after the update it hung on the new Android logo (I let it sit for 73 minutes before giving up)
  9. restarted into recovery mode again
  10. wiped the cache and data again
  11. restarted the Adam again
  12. same result

I tried redownloading the .zip file and trying again

  1. renamed the file first this time
  2. copied it to my 32GB Micro SD
  3. this time I added some .apk files to the apps folder to try and save some time reinstalling things
  4. restarted into recovery mode again
  5. wiped the cache and data again
  6. selected update from external SD
  7. update failed update.zip (BAD)
  8. took the Micros SD out again
  9. and put it in my desktop
  10. I tried to open the .zip file and it failed to open, “Error: /media/disk/update.zip: Can not open file as archive”

rinse and repeat four times, same issue every time. Always the same issue if I try to reboot too, with it hanging on the Android logo.

Just to test if it was my Ubuntu install corrupting the file transfer I tried it from the laptop in Windows, same results, exactly.

I’ve tested the .zip both before and after putting it in the Adam, every time the same, doesn’t matter if I put the card in my desktop, laptop with either OS. It is always good before I put it in the Adam (yes I tested by copying it on one computer and opening it on the other before putting it in the Adam), and Always bad after I take it out of my Adam.

Now, I still have the Beast v2.2 update.zip on the internal SD; however when I flash to it, the Adam reboots and then gets stuck on the Android logo (from the new v2.2.1 rom) as such is obviously still Beast v2.2.1 even after what appeared to be a successful flash.

**** update ****
two other notes,

  1. I do have and have tried, a 2GB microSD card. same results.
  2. I called the file update.zip.zip (by accident on the Win7 machine, hidden known file types) one time and the Adam said it could not find the file, then when I put it in my laptop again (in Win7) and tried to open the file to make sure it was still good, Windows prompted me to “insert the last disk of the Multi-Volume set” Again, this was on a zip file that was working when I took it out of the laptop, was not named update.zip and it still had the issue when I took it out of my Adam.

Because of #2 here in the update section, I tested this by placing other .zip files in the root of the micro SD, and all .zip files are corrupted after I put the card in my Adam.

****update 2****
I downloaded the Beastv2.2.1 Rom from my own mirror location, saved it to my 2GB MicroSD and put it in the Adam. Flashed perfectly and then said “BYE” and restarted, I ran out to return a red box movie right as it flashed “BYE” and when I came back it was still sitting on the “ANDROID” logo, so no go there. The Good news is that the update.zip file was not corrupted when I stuck it back in the Win7 machine. not sure what changed, but it was the first time the zip file came back ok. So I just tried powering the Adam back on normal. Sat on the ANDROID screen for 10 minutes before I gave up. Went back in and wiped the Data and Cache and rebooted again, my reward for diligence was 10 more minutes on the ANDROID logo. I do want to note at this time that all times it sat on the Android logo, from the first flashing, the logo WAS animated, it was not hung, more like the Adam was waiting on something. Also I want to note I have tried flashing clockwork on to try and see if it would help, but get the same results. I also tried rebooting without the MicroSD card inserted, no difference.

I’m going to try a different Rom and see if it makes any difference.

Well, I failed with Vegan Rom also…
I guess I need to setup ADB and do an unbrick…
strange enough it always flashes the copied Beastv2.2 from the internal card with no issues, other than it still boots with the Gingerbread Android Logo and gets stuck on it forever…

**** Update 3 ****
Stranger things have happened, I plugged my Adam into the Laptop while Win7 was booted and the Adam was trying to boot into something, and it recognized it, added 4 devices to my computer, including one called “Harmony” which I had to use the unbricking USB Driver to recognize, it turned into Android Debug Device after that… It did mount the storage device; however, I was not able to open it, it just told me to insert a disk. I will start the unbricking process in the morning, as I am tired now and don’t want to make any stupid mistakes.

Ok, so it is a new day, and I have successfully restored my Adam to the way it was when they shipped it to me.
As an fyi, my Adam normally boots with a white background, black text “Notion Ink” additionally in the recovery options it says:

  • reboot system now
  • apply internal sdcard:update.zip
  • apply external sdcard:update.zip
  • wipe data/cache
  • wipe cache partition
  • calibrate touch screen

I flashed with the unbricking file windows_PQ, it took about 2 minutes to complete, and my adam now has a white text, black background notion ink logo, and #4 in the recovery window says “wipe data/factory reset” and is stuck on the adam boot screen loop.

I am right now doing both wipe steps and rebooting again…
And my adam started up without issue.

**** update ****
I have (just for fun) checked for updates on my adam, while it was in stock mode and there was one available. I downloaded it, and it is a 81.48 MB file, I have copied it to a usb stick, just in case, and will put the results here after it runs. (not sure what to expect, as I am currently on NIP20040211.

**** after update ****
I got my black Notion ink logo on a white background back, and am now on build NIP20140211, kernel 2.6.32, Android v2.2, it remembered my wifi security key… and now reports my adam is up to date and the update file has disappeared from my internal memory and my external SD…

Now for fun, I am going to try and install clockwork and then the exact same Beastv2.2.1 file that I tried the first time that got me in this mess…

hmmm… every time I copy (or rename) the clockwork.zip file to update.zip using sniffer, if turns into an empty folder named update, which disappears if I switch to another filesystem (ie go to USB or SD2, then back to the internal SD), but if I try to copy it again, it tells me the file already exists…

I am having the same issue if I try to rename and save the file from my desktop or laptop as I was having originally. So at this point I have a Notion Ink Adam that looks, runs and functions exactly like it did when I received it. Which in my mind is not at all. Now I am stuck, I cannot get my Adam to switch to another Rom, I cannot install anything via the update.zip method.

******************* UPDATE ******************
This issue has been resolved and within about 5 minutes I have found the problem and fixed it and I am preparing now to reflash my Adam to my modified Beast v2.2.1

The problem was caused by Beast v2.2.1 dropping LauncherPro as an installed home launcher, and only including VTL.Launcher (which I cannot stand, personally I think the weird floating shortcuts on the sides are abominable!) So, I’ve installed Launcher Pro from the market, and backed it up with Titanium Backup and copied the backups to my MicroSD, that I’ll transfer into my modified Beast Rom and attempt to install again.

******************* FINAL UPDATE!!! **********************
This issue was caused by a counterfeit Kingston 32GB micro SDHC class 6 – according to the Kingston website, the 32GB micro SDHC is not manufactured in class 6

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Recent computer hardware changes and future plans

By finndo On February 8, 2011 · 1 Comment

right, so headed in a different direction with this post, I have made several updates/changes to my home computing setup since last I posted about it, and have decided it is time to do something about that. Currently I am setup and using the following:

PC components

right, so headed in a different direction with this post, I have made several updates/changes to my home computing setup since last I posted about it, and have decided it is time to do something about that. Currently I am setup and using the following:

PC components

external RAID enclosure

now not all of the HDD models are exact, I tried to pick the ones that were right, but I know I have one WD that ends in AACS, although that might be my 500GB PATA in my external WD case… The Radeon 4890 had a cooling fan failure so I replaced it with a 29.4 cfm case cooling fan that I epoxied onto the outer hard plastic cover (would not have fit inside anyway…) I think that ought to keep it cool… :)

ok, so all was purchased from Newegg.com except the video card, which I actually got on Craig’s list for $60 (he was asking $75 I believe) nice guy, also an HTC Evo owner and friended me on facebook, although that is the only time we have talked… Anyway, the Rosewill case and the 2TB HDD were holiday presents to myself in early Jan, the 1.5 TB I got last spring, the Radeon and 8GB RAM (upgraded from 4GB) I bought this past summer, most of the rest I got in may of 2009. Currently, the first list is what is in my case, the second list is all in the RAID enclosure (not running any for of RAID on the box, just using it so I do not have to keep the drives in the V9 for now). (getting used to these shortcuts on this cr-48 notebook, starting to enjoy using it more!)

Ok, so I am running Ubuntu 10.10 on the 250GB drive, with both mine and my wife’s home drives mounted from partitions on the RAID enclosure, my music folder is on the WD green 500GB drive, which is then bind mounted on to my wife’s music folder, so we share the same files (I’ve been working on setting up labels in Guayadeque (the music player I am using, more on that later) to separate out her music, so she doesn’t have to listen to mine on random play). The 500GB Black edition drive is my Windows 7 installation I Was using last year. Then ll my data is stored on the 2TB and 1.5TB drives, with the Virtual machines spread across the 1.5TB and the 2TB drives, I am looking into another 2TB drive to replace either the Win7 Drive or the other 500GB and to spread the VM’s a bit more as I am finding myself using at least 2 VMs that are on the same drive simultaneously. Although right now I am not having space issues, I am having CPU issues with frequent 100% 100% 100% 100% showing across all cores. The good news is AMD just dropped prices a little on their 6 core CPUs, hopefully that means they have a new family launching soon, I haven’t been keeping up with the news that much lately. If a new family is coming out this year (unless they are 8 core AMD CPU’s I’ll pick up a 6 core when the price goes down again (again my current MB supports 6 core phenoms, another selling point when I bought it), or I catch them on special on newegg. Right now the 1100 is $239, when it hits $199 I’ll snatch one up. That should give a nice boost to my VM’s, although at that point I might be running low on RAM and need to pick up another 8 or 16GB of DDR3 (thankfully my MB supports 32GB, although that was the deciding factor when I chose it).

Last on my upgrade list will be a 100GB BD burner so I can make an easily store-able backup of all my data (which by that time will be so outdated I could delete most of it…), by that time there should be 100GB Blue Ray discs, so it won’t take too many to do it. I’ll make two sets and mail one off to my parents on the other side of the country, any changes after that I could probably do an incremental on DVD’s…

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BSD update…

By finndo On March 17, 2010 · 1 Comment

So, I have gone through all my drivers for my wireless network card with the Realtek rtl8190p chipset, all but the windows XP driver will convert with ndisgen and all the ones that convert will load; however I never get a wlan0 or a ndis0 network interface in ifconfig.  So, having [...]

So, I have gone through all my drivers for my wireless network card with the Realtek rtl8190p chipset, all but the windows XP driver will convert with ndisgen and all the ones that convert will load; however I never get a wlan0 or a ndis0 network interface in ifconfig.  So, having gotten at least a device identification while using the Kubuntu live CD, I went ahead and tried using ndiswrapper, well, it does not work when in a live CD, requires several packages (which also requires an inet connection).  I went ahead and installed Kubuntu 9.10, still no wlan0 in ifconfig; however it correctly identifies the card and the chipset in “lspci -v” so I have been setting the OS up for use, I bridged the wireless network connection from my laptop (which makes the inet not work really well on the laptop, but does allow the desktop to get online).

Well, when I installed the ATI drivers for my video card (a must when intending on using VMs) I caught the invisible mouse bug that has been plaguing Ubuntu since at leas v6 (forum posts) and apparently happens in Fedora with NVidia drivers as well. as best I could tell, only with KDE.  Since I am very well attached to my KDE I really do not want to switch.  So, I have been working without a visible mouse.  I got the ndiswrapper up and running, installed ndisgtk so I could have a UI for ndiswrapper, and added the most recent windows x64 driver for my wireless card to the ndisgtk interface and then my system decided it did not want to work anymore.  I could open a terminal and do a “ps” or an “ls” but anything else would hang (including shutdown, reboot, kill, sudo, and ifconfig commands) the inet stopped working and my mouse was invisible, so I rebooted.

This time my display would not activate at all.  I waited 20 mins for it to come up, and nothing.  at this point I am about to decide that using VMWare is not worth the hassle of getting a computer to work with Linux.  I should stick to Virtualbox and Win7 both work just as well, Virtualbox newer versions have advanced 3D support and allow as many processor cores as you physically have (VMWare was limiting me to 2 per VM).  The thing I was looking forward to the most about VMWare was the memory pooling, so you could load VMs who’s total RAM assigned was greater than the physical RAM on the machine, since it only gave RAM to a VM when it was needed.

So, now I am in Slax (booted off my USB stick) and have to make emergency repairs to my xorg.conf file (I assume it is the culprit at this point), because I had Kubuntu setup with no bootloader, since I was planning on VMing not multi-booting.  Further updates to come… if I get Kubuntu to work, I’ll try BSD again on another HDD and see if anything I learned from Kubuntu helped.  If not, I still have my HDD with Win7 sitting on the shelf here next to me.

************update about an hour later…***********

so the Slax Module kndiswrapper (=ndisgtk) was able to load the win XP x64 driver and identify that the device was present.  when I clicked the configure network button, it popped up a message “Can’t Start the Network Configureation! No Interface Found”.  now… I am starting to wonder if it is not the rtl8190p chipset that is causing my problem, as I have found it correctly identified in Fedora 12, KUbuntu 9.10, and Slax, yet none of them can activate the device for networking.  I did note on another page (check the tags for rtl8190p) that I found a website that I think has posted a linux rtl8190 driver, but I am not 100% on that, and have no idea how to add it to the kernel without building my own.  AND if I am going to build my own Custom Linux kernel for my machine, I’m gonna need a LOT more time… (when I get up and running on some OS again, and I get back here to add links to this post, I’ll put the link in for that website too).

 

*******update – an hour after that…*******

Right, thoroughly upset with Ubuntu right now, will not even boot into single user mode, I tried removing the xorg.conf file and still nothing, normal or in single user mode.  I can (depending on how my wife reacts to the Cat cable running from her laptop (read “used to be mine”) out of the bedroom, across the hall, and over to the other side of the livingroom…) keep my laptop in bridged mode, I’ve been tinkering and as long as I don’t reboot or touch anything on it (she does not have admin rights and is still in Win7) inet is working on both machines.  I only have about 30 more days before I am moving into a new apt (I hope, they still have not called to tell me my application is approved, I don’t know any reason why it wouldn’t, but it normally takes them an hour or 2 when I have gone to other apts, but this place has had 5 days already…) and in the new apt, the router and computer will be side by side, or close enough that you’d never see the cable! so no more wireless needed, until I relocate again…

 

Anyway, the point of all that ^^^^^ is that I am going to kill KUbuntu and put FreeBSD 8.0 back on my machine…

(I’ll add links after I get a working/bootable computer again)

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