Valk Tear Down Day 1

2011-08-25:

Pulled the tank off:

test

pig

Clockwork Recovery on the 3G Xoom

Ref XDA:

Download Clockwork Recovery for the Xoom, then:

Linux:

$ ./adb reboot bootloader
$ ./fastboot flash recovery recovery-solarnz-XXXXXX-XXXX.img
$ ./fastboot reboot

After rebooting:

$ ./adb reboot recovery

Or install Quickboot from the market.

Unlock & Root 3G Xoom

Software needed:

-Android SDK: http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html

-Java SDK (use synaptic)

-fastboot (from HTC): http://developer.htc.com/google-io-device.html#s2

Linux:

Create this file (as root): /etc/udev/rules.d/51.android.rules containing:

SUBSYSTEM=="usb", SYSFS{idVendor}=="0bb4", MODE="0666"

SUBSYSTEM=="usb", SYSFS{idVendor}=="18d1", MODE="0666"

Xoom: Make sure "USB Debugging" is on (Applications->Development)

Linux:

Open konsole in SDK/tools directory (ie: ~/Download/Motorola/xoom/SDK/android-sdk-linux_x86/tools):

$ ./adb reboot bootloader

$ chmod 777 fastboot

$ ./fastboot oem unlock

Wait....

Unlocked!!!

Enter info on Xoom...Make sure "USB Debugging" is on again.

Linux:

$ ./adb reboot bootloader

$ ./fastboot flash boot rootboot.img (From here.)

$ ./fastboot reboot

Wait...

Linux:

$ ./adb remount

$ ./adb push su /system/bin

$./adb shell

# ln –s /system/bin/su /system/xbin/su

# chmod 4755 /system/bin/su

# exit

Install Superuser from market

Install busybox from market

Install Titanium Backup from market (Do NOT install busybox from within Titanium Backup!)

How To Remove Hidden Partitions From Hard Drives

I hate those hidden, virtural CDs that come on some newer external hard drives. Apparently, this is how to remove them: HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool.

It's a windows app tho. Blech.

Information here.

How To Make Thunderbird Open Links In KDE

Seems like the easiest way to make Thunderbird properly work on PCLOS using KDE is to do this:

1. Go to the config editor (Edit->Preferences==>Advanced->General->Config Editor)
2. Agree to the warning if it pops up
3. Enter this into the filte box at the top: network.protocol-handler.warn-external.http
4. Double-click each entry shown to change it to true.
5. Close the Config Editor.
6. Click a http or https link, and wait for the dialog box to open asking what application to use.
7. Click on Choose and browse to a web browser ("/usr/bin/chromium-browser" for example)
8. Place a check where it says to "Remember my choice" if desired.
9. Profit!

This also works if you click an internal T-bird link, such as "Get Themes" in the Add-ons dialog box. There is a noticable delay before that box pops up tho in that case. Just wait a minute and all will be fine.

More details here at the PCLOS forums.

Random Bowing Thought...

So, Obama can bow down to any foreign leader, but he can't even bend a knee to place a flower at a US soldier's grave, instead just throwing it down.*

* Back during the campaign, when he and McCain laid flowers down at, I think, the Tomb Of The Unknown Soldier on Veteran's Day. Gotta look that up for details.

Rooting the Original Droid

Using an SBF file and RSDlite v4.6. From droid-life.com.

How To Unroot The Droid2

On a related note, here's how to unroot the Droid2, assuming no custom ROMs, and no deleting of stock bloatware apps:

• open your trusty terminal app (that's the terminal emulator you downloaded)
• you should see a $ symbol, now do the following (type each line exactly as writen after the "-" but do not type what is in the parenthesis)
• su (give a minute to ask for Superuser Permission. If it doesn't ask, go into Superuser Permissions and grant access to your Terminal Emulator and go back and retry this step)
• now you should see a # symbol (after each of the following steps is processed, you will see a #)
• mount -o rw,remount -text3 /dev/block/mmcblk1p21 /system
• rm /system/app/Superuser.apk
• rm /system/bin/su
• rm /system/bin/busybox
• mount -o ro,remount -text3 /dev/block/mmcblk1p21 /system
• reboot your phone. Tada, no more root! To prove this, try opening wireless tether or another program needing root access and you will be rejected.

Rooting The Droid2 Without a PC

From droidforums.net:

Download these and copy to root folder of sdcard:

• rageagainstthecage-arm5.bin
• su
• Superuser.apk
• Terminal emulator

Enable USB debugging: Settiings -> applications -> development -> USB debugging

Open terminal emulator and....

• cd /tmp
• cp /sdcard/rage*.bin /tmp/
• chmod 777 rage*.bin
• ./rage*.bin

Wait for about 5 minutes. It may finish and return with a $ prompt.

Hit the Home button, then: Settings -> Applications -> Manage Applications -> Running -> Terminal Emulator. Force close terminal emulator.

Return home, then open terminal emulator. (You should have a # prompt. If not, and/or you phone is lagging reboot your phone and start over at "cd /tmp".)

• mount -o rw,remount -t ext3 /dev/block/mmcblk1p21 /system
• cp /sdcard/Superuser.apk /system/app/Superuser.apk
• cp /sdcard/su /system/bin/su
• cp /sdcard/busybox /system/bin/busybox
• chmod 4755 /system/bin/su
• chmod 4755 /system/bin/busybox
• mount -o ro,remount -t ext3 /dev/block/mmcblk1p21 /system
• exit

Reboot phone.

Check to see if you have the superuser app in your app drawer. Also open terminal emulator and type the following command: "su"

A window should open prompting you to allow it to have superuser permissions.

You now have root.

Also, another droidfurums.net reference here, with what to do after rooting.

I Should Write A Book...

...called "Everything I Learned About Race I Learned From Liberals."

Obama's healing "Republicans can rids in the back of the bus" comment.

Blacks are more "persuadable" than others.

Among many others.

Yet Another Blogilo Test

Using blogilo 1.0.1, in KDE 4.5.2, running on PCLinuxOS.

Only apparent drawback to this program so far is that it doesn't pull in my already defined tags. Hopefully a later version will.

Back to PCLinuxOS

"As you may have heard, the future of the Mandriva Linux distribution is unclear.

Most employees working on the distribution were laid off when Edge-IT was liquidated. We do not trust the plans of Mandriva SA anymore and we don't think the company (or any company) is a safe host for such a project."

Well, all-righty then.

I really don't feel like using a distro that is apparently soon-to-be-dead, so I've jumped the Mandrake/Mandriva ship again. And I'm back to PCLinuxOS. I've always liked the rolling release concept, vs the distinct versions and the obligatory version disaster^H^H^H upgrades. There's no 64-bit, but since you really only need that in order to access 4G of memory or more, it's not that big of a deal right now. Also, PCLOS has kernels that can indeed access much more than 4G of RAM while still being a 32-bit system.

So I'm good for now.

MakeMKV on PCLinuxOS

Well....goodbye Mandriva. Back to good ol' PCLOS. 32-bit, but I only have 3G RAM anyways. So now I need to build MakeMKV again.

Need to install these:

• make
• glibc
• glibc-devel
• libopenssl
• libopenssl-devel
• zlib
• zlib1-devel
• libqt4-devel
• automoc4
• libmesagl1-devel
• gcc-c++
• libexpat1-dev

And....we're back.

Mandriva & MakeMKV

Well, having done a fresh install of Mandriva 2010.1, I needed to install all the development packages so that I can install MakeMKV. Since they only list the required packages if using something like Ubuntu, it takes some searching to figure exactly what is needed on Mandriva. So, here is the list of packages needed to build MakeMKV. This is only the basic list; a number of additional dependent packages will be installed as well:

• lib64qt4
• lib64qt4-devel
• libstdc++-devel
• automoc4
• lib64mesagl1-devel
• gcc-c++
• lib64openssl1.0.0-devel
• make

This is for a 64-bit system obviously.

Found my Droid wallpaper

Turns out 7-Zip can uncompress the android APK files. Who knew?

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Rooted Droid

Well, I've finally taken the plunge and rooted my Motorola Droid. Started with the SPRecovery and a rooted vanilla Android 2.1. Then really went for it and installed the cyanogenmod. Cyanogen installed easily but seemed to have google voice problems when not connected via Wi-Fi. So I reROMed to bugless beast, and decided to up the ante to the 1.1 GHz kernel.

With bugless my benchmark has me faster than the HTC Incredible. It's blazing fast and has been quite stable, with no Google Voice issues.

Titanium backup has been essential for restoring my apps after flashing new ROMs. It does however not restore desktop widgets correctly. It leaves a placeholder for each widget, but each one must be fully replaced.

Can't wait for a bugless based on Froyo.

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Testing bloggerdroid

Much better. Title and body section. No tags tho.

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Testing from android using iamblogger

NBC Admits Man Can Not Cause Global-Warming

I'm still lookig for the video, but NBC Nightly News Anchor Brian Williams admitted during his opening statement the other day that (paraphrasing), no matter how much we thing we run things, along comes mother nature to prove that she's still in charge, referring to the Icelandic volcanic eruption.

I haven't found the video yet, but his blog essentially says the same thing: "Just as we start thinking we're masters of the skies ... something like a volcano comes along."