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Manta MID801 aka. Trak tPad

A help request in making a custom ROM for this model (or a ready ROM if such exists)

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Amarok

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2014/11/27 - 21:40

Hi guys! So I have this tablet, the name mentioned in the title, I own one of each mentioned actually, but in practice they are exactly identical, the only difference is the company name on the back. So it's kind of double important for me to have a custom ROM for it The problem is that the stock firmware from both vendors SUCKS HARD. The performance makes this tab almost useless, though the specs aren't bad at all and thus I'd love to make something out of these devices. Ok, let's get to it:

I'll begin with stating that I rooted both devices successfully and have an unpacked official firmware for it available whenever, also I can easily mount the system.img to get any config files you may want to take a look at, there are separate boot.img, kernel.img, recovery.img and some misc.img (???) so there's some stuff to work with already. My problem is that I took on an ambitious idea of making a port of AOSP, AOKP or CyanogenMOD, but I spent 2 days preparing and still don't know exactly where to start, because I guess I need some device specific files to make different devices work by supplying drivers to the system, but also some files that will make the ROM actually what it's suppose to be, so particular Android version with particular mods. Various manuals are of moderate utility, so I figured I'd ask some 'living' being for advice

Some parameters to help identify the device:

RK3066 (obviously) 1.6 GHz x 2, Mali-400, Android 4.1.1/4.1.2 (depending on vendor), 1 GB RAM (876,74 available), 8 GB internal memory (5,39 unreserved), 8" screen, 1024x768, architecture: Armv7, platform architecture: rk30xx, manufacturer: rockchip.

Photos, ROM dump, parameters and build.prop here: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B8DHhTVOTgDQSW12VmY5UVoxVFE&authuser=0

Oma7144

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2014/11/28 - 07:23

Link does not work for me.

- Oma -

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Amarok

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2014/11/28 - 08:15

Sorry, now it should

Oma7144

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2014/11/28 - 17:46

Ok, build with kernel carlos #63, preempt 8. Apr 2013 is also here (2nd post): http://www.manta.info.pl/forum/mid801-firmware/mid801-firmware/msg21664/#msg21664

Build: http://crewrktablets.arctablet.com/?p=1913

Kernel: http://crewrktablets.arctablet.com/?wpfb_dl=2268

- Oma -

The following users say thank you to Oma7144 for this useful post:

Amarok

Per aspera ad astra, we rock the Tablets !

If you like our firmwares, please consider making a donation to support our work.
Thank you!

Amarok

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2014/11/28 - 22:37

Thanks! What should I use to flash it? (preferrably Linux, I can set up a win7 virtual machine and passthrough for USB if necessary, but I'd love to avoid it) I'm still downloading the ROM itself and it's going terribly slow, so it'll take a second, but I suppose I have to just put the kernel into the rom and repack it with the wendal tool?

Oma7144

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2014/11/28 - 22:40

Look into the download pack. You will find your way.

Linux Tool is here: http://crewrktablets.arctablet.com/?p=3973

- Oma -

The following users say thank you to Oma7144 for this useful post:

Amarok

Per aspera ad astra, we rock the Tablets !

If you like our firmwares, please consider making a donation to support our work.
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Amarok

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2014/11/28 - 22:42

Oh, sorry for my dumb question in the previous post, it's all written on the webpage... And thanks for the linux tool, it will save me a lot of time and trouble! I'll let You know in a few minutes on how did it go

Amarok

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2014/11/28 - 23:15

Allright, so I ran 'make config' in the kernel source and he asks about the cross-compilation prefix...
Cross-compiler tool prefix (CROSS_COMPILE) []
I guess I am cross-compiling (it's about architecture, right?) so what should I write?
arm-unknown-linux-gnu- ???

Edit: Wow, I don't know how did it happen, but instead of taking the ready kernel.img, I assumed some kernel directory to be the Inhalt of the kernel package from you, sorry for the fuss, I got it

Amarok

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2014/11/29 - 00:37

I'm stuck...

Also failed on Linux:
http://www.filedropper.com/parameter
http://www.filedropper.com/package-file

Amarok

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2014/11/29 - 01:06

OK, now I succeeded in packing, but...

config.ini contains only empty parameters, should I do somthing with that?
=============================================================================================
OK, I managed to pack an image, but it's like 6 kB in size or something, what did I do wrong?

Amarok

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2014/11/29 - 02:20

OK, I managed to pack a better-looking update.img which has 600+ MB in size and AFPTool (ran in wine) reported a success at packing, but still the linux_upgrade_tool rejects the package. Any ideas? I tested that original firmware flashes without problems, so I probably did something wrong at the packaging step.

Update: RKBatchTool also reports an error loading firmware image.

Astralix

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2014/11/29 - 12:11

Hi Amarok,

I am still trying to catch up with what you tried to do. I will respond to your thread here this evening.
the upgrade_tool as well as the corresponding windows tools are taking the upgrade.img into pieces and check every singe part of it. But normally they do not give much information what they stumble upon, if they fail.

I will come back later this day.-

Astralix

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If you like our firmwares, please consider making a donation to support our work.
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Amarok

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2014/11/30 - 12:19

Hi guys!

First of all - thank you for your help and interest. I managed finally to install the ROM, I used the tool Oma provided on my sister's old notebook with Windows 7. I followed Oma's instructions exactly and it worked fine. The reason for all the commotion that can be seen in a few of my posts above is that I'm kind of a Linux guy, or even "FLOSS or die!" guy. I tried hard to do it without having to use Windows, so, first I tried to use linux_upgrade_tool , but it required to ROM to be in a single package. It flashed the stock ROM from Manta's forum without a slightest complication, but it refused to load my software image (which I packed using Oma's images of single partitions packed with the AFPTool from wendal unpack/repack tool), also the RKBatchTool provided by the manufacturer failed to load this image. The last thing I tried and it didn't work was the RKFlashTool for Linux. It flashed each partition separately, the effect was similar to the one from the working configuration (same boot splash image bug), but the system didn't boot correctly. I'll write more when I get be home.

Astralix

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2014/11/30 - 13:31

Hi!

Good to see that it worked, but here is the linux receipe too. I am using linux for everything and so I use it for programming the tabs and boards too.

First, please use the latest tools and so you should buidl the tools from naobsd. I do not have any information about the status of wendal and if he is still updating and supporting his tools. So the git to clone and build is this one:
https://github.com/naobsd/rkutils

Second, use the current linux tools provided by Rockchip or Rockchip near people like this one:
http://crewrktablets.arctablet.com/?s=upgrade_tool&submit=Suchen

The rkflashtool that can be used to flash images and is an open source tool provided by the community, is not using all features of the bootloaders and therefore it is not as stable as the upgrade_tool.

For updating a tablet there are two ways:
Single upgrade.img
Multiple single images.

If you can keep the bootloader "RK3xxxxLoader(L)_vX.YY.img" you kan use the single image updaten and flash the images :
upgrade_tool DI -k kernel.img
upgrade_tool DI -b boot.img
upgrade_tool DI -r recovery.img
...

As the bootloader must match closely to the rknand.ko kernel modules used in boot and recovery, you might need to upgrade the bootloader too. In that case a upgrade.img is very handy, as the Linux upgrade_tool and the Windows factory batch tool do all needed steps correctly. If there is no upgrade.img available, you need to go exactly throught the following steps with the linux tool including the quotation marks (You can use after RK31 or RK30 to autocomplete the correct Loader name):

# Load new Loader to DRAM and use it to erase the NAND
upgrade_tool EF "RK3xxxLoader(L)_vX.YY.img"
# Write new Loader to DRAM and use it to flash itself to NAND
upgrade_tool UL "RK3xxxLoader(L)_vX.YY.img"
# Now use this new Loader to format the NAND to the correct layout
upgrade_tool LF

With these steps correctly done, you have a fresh empty NAND and a new bootloader installed. Now you need to first flash back the parameter...
upgrade_tool DI -p parameter
... then flash all new images ...
upgrade_tool DI -k Image/kernel.img
upgrade_tool DI -b Image/boot.img
upgrade_tool DI -m Image/misc.img
upgrade_tool DI -r Image/recovery.img
upgrade_tool DI -s Image/system.img
... and you're done.

Remember: You cannot brick any current RK30 or RK31 based tablet or stick. You might bring it into a condition, where you need to do some pin-shorting in very rare conditions. But if it is not physically broken (DRAM or SOC shot by ESD or unluck soldering operations) you can always recover the thing with only upgrade_tool, and a current set of images at hand.

Greetings
Astralix

The following users say thank you to Astralix for this useful post:

Amarok

Per aspera ad astra, we rock the Tablets !

If you like our firmwares, please consider making a donation to support our work.
Thank you!

Amarok

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2014/11/30 - 14:54

Wow, it's a nice piece of information you gave here, it will be very useful for me, it's way more convenient to refrain from using Windows when playing with the tab. This fuss about compiling the kernel, by the way, is my mistake. I had a mess in my download folder (yeah, I know working in the download folder is dumb in the first place...) and when I unpacked archives from Oma, his kernel archive contained a kernel.img, but I also had a folder named "kernel" in the downloads and I was stupid enough to assume it's the content of Oma's package and that he's expecting me to compile it But speaking of kernels - I have a 3.0.x kernel and I could also use a CPU governor like smartassv2 or alike. So is there any chance I could succeed at compiling my own kernel for this device? And what about ROM in general? I'm learning about custom Android ROMs currently and I'm on a very early stage ATM, but I'm locked on building my own AOSP or CM ports as a target, so could You give me some hints? Some useful resources (I'm using CyanogenMOD society's learning resources, but when it comes to sources of knowledge, more is always better) and some explanations like for example why didn't you port CM 11 to the RKboard - I mean is it because youdeem it noth worth your time, or is there some hardware or other limitation that makes it unfeasible?

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