hack News - Page 13 of 13 - CNX Software

July 19, 2012July 19, 2012 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 24 Comments

TP-Link WR703N – $23 Hackable openWRT Wi-Fi 802.11N Router

TP-Link WR703N is a tiny 802.11N 150 Mbps Wi-Fi router smaller than a credit card (5.7 x 5.7 cm) and 1.8 cm thick based on Atheros AR7240 processor with 4 MB flash and 32 MB RAM. It costs just above $20 US and can be hacked with openWRT. It features one USB host connector that allows you to connect USB devices (USB flash drive, printer…) to it. TL-WR703N Specifications: Atheros AR7240 CPU @ 400Mhz (MIPS24k core) Atheros AR9331 Chipset (integrated wireless) 10/100 Mbit Ethernet port 802.11 b/g/n 150Mbps 3G support via external USB dongle 4 MB flash memory 32 MB RAM USB 2.0 port micro-USB port for power Dimension – 5.7 x 5.7 x 1.8 cm All you need is a USB to TLL board to access the serial console, open the box to access the serial pins (TP_IN and TP_OUT) and follow the instructions on openWRT website to convert […]

June 6, 2012June 6, 2012 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

Make Your Own Raspberry Pi Laptop With a Motorola Lapdock

There is a very interested thread over the Raspberry Pi forums started by user veryevil where he explains how he built a Raspberry Pi laptop based on Motorola Lapdock (normally used with Motorola Atrix smartphone). This is actually a real hack, because the Raspberry Pi still have to sit outside and you need to make custom cables. But the result still looks great, and veryevil claims the system runs Linux smoothly with a resolution of 1366×768 and the battery can last for hours. Some other users have joined the party, and improved on the design with shorter cables. You can check that forum post for detailed pictures of each cables. Motorola Lapdock used to be an expensive piece of equipment, but Raspberry Pi users indicated it’s currently discounted to 69.98 GBP on Amazon UK and I found it for 81 USD on Amazon US (AT&T Version) which makes it somewhat […]

May 6, 2012May 29, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 19 Comments

Editing AllWinner A10 Board Configuration Files (script.bin)

AllWinner A10 based devices all have board configuration files in binary format, sometimes refereed to as script.bin, evb.bin, sys_config.{product_nane}.bin store in the FAT partition with the kernel. You may want to decode those binary files to configure your hardware and/or disable/enable peripherals. For the Ubuntu image provided for the Mele A1000 set-top box, the file is called evb.bin and the two other files (mele.bin and sys_config1.mele_mod.bin) are not used. The filename can change since it is configurable in u-boot e.g.: load1=fatload mmc 0 43000000 evb.bin bootcmd=run load1 boot_mmc If you want to decrypt the binary files into text format (fex), you can retrieve bin2fex tool: git clone https://github.com/amery/sunxi-tools Build it: cd sunxi-tools make This will compile both bin2fex (binary to fex text files) and fex2bin (fex files to bin), but the later does not seem to work right now. fex2bin also works now. If you want to decrypt a configuration […]

April 28, 2012May 29, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 36 Comments

How to Create Your Own Debian / Ubuntu Image for Mele A1000 (AllWinner A10 Based STB)

Developers working on AllWinner A10 have released an Ubuntu 10.04 LTS SD card image (4GB) for the Mele A1000. I’ll show how you can create your own Debian or Ubuntu image based on this image for any size of SD Card using Debian 6.0 (Squeeze) and the recent Ubuntu 12.04 (Precise Pangolin) as example. The current image is not perfect, for example Ethernet doesn’t work (but you can still get network connectivity with WiFi), the NAND flash can not be accessed, the system does not appear to be very stable when running X and a few more issues. But this will be fixed by the developer community over time. First download the SD card image wget http://hands.com/~lkcl/mele-ubuntu-lucid.img.lzma Install 7z (if you don’t have it yet) and decompress the file: sudo apt-get install p7zip-full 7z x mele-ubuntu-lucid.img.lzma The decompressed size is 4008706048, which might be larger than your 4GB SD Card […]

March 20, 2012May 29, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 29 Comments

Mele A1000: AllWinner A10 (Cortex A8) Based Hackable Android STB

The Mele A1000 is an Android 2.3 IP Set-top Box (STB) powered by AllWinner A10 (Cortex A8) CPU with 512 MB RAM and 2 GB NAND Flash. AllWinner A10 is the CPU to be used by the 15 USD (BOM Cost) Rhombus Tech Linux Computer, an alternative to the Raspberry-Pi. Since they do not have an alpha board yet, the Mele A1000 STB is apparently the development platform chosen by developers involved in Rhombus Tech low cost board while they wait for the hardware. Let’s have a look at the device specifications: CPU: ARM CortexA8 1GHz (AllWinner A10) Memory: DDR3 512MB RAM / 2 4GB Nand Flash OS System: Android 2.3 External Storage: Supports SD card up to 32GB, supports 2.5″ SATA HDD up to 1TB, Supports max 16GB USB flash disk Video coding: HD MPEG1/2/4.H.264.HD AVC/VC-1,RM/RMVB, Xvid/DviX4/5/6, RealVideo8/9/10, VP6 Video Format: ts/m2ts/tp/trp/mkv/mp4/mov/avi/rm/rmvb/wmv/vob/asf/flv/dat/mpf/mpeg Audio Format: MP3/WMA/WMV/OGG/FLAC/MKV Subtitle Format: SRT/SMI/SSA/ASS Network […]

August 16, 2011August 16, 2011 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

HTC Releases Unlock Bootloader Tool

HTC has finally released its “Unlock Bootloader” tool, that allows owner of HTC phones to develop software on their smartphone and/or to replace the current Android version by another version. Read HTC announcement below: HTC is committed to listening to users and delivering customer satisfaction. We have heard your voice and starting now, we will allow our bootloader to be unlocked for 2011 models going forward. We plan on releasing the updates that will allow you to unlock your bootloader in the coming months, please keep an eye on this website for more details on which devices will be adding this feature. We are extremely pleased to see the energy and enthusiasm from our fans and loyal customers, and we are excited to see what you are capable of. HTC eagerly anticipates your innovations. Currently it is only available for HTC Sensation (EU) with support planned for HTC EVO 3D […]