Just ordered my eken m001 - what firmware should i put on?

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jbard

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#68186 16-Sep-2010 14:32

Hi

Just ordered my eken m001 and it should be here tomorrow. I understand the preloaded firmware is pretty average. What recommendations do you have?

And possibly links to tutorials of how to setup new firmware?

Thanks

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#380682 16-Sep-2010 15:02

do a search and you'll find many posts with regards to custom firmware for this tablet. many are from GZ member LinuxLuver who has extensive experience with updated firmware for this tablet.

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Linuxluver

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#380893 16-Sep-2010 21:26

jbard: Hi

Just ordered my eken m001 and it should be here tomorrow. I understand the preloaded firmware is pretty average. What recommendations do you have?

And possibly links to tutorials of how to setup new firmware?

Thanks

The best at the moment is Lefeudedieu's "Relax v1.9.7". Information and download links are in this thread at slatedroid.com

*** The Android Market is 100% functional "out of the box". *** (You want this!) ***

It's as quick as any firmware I;ve tried.

It's already rooted (and you need this).

It supports a linux swap partition on the sdcard immediately, provided the partition is the second one (/dev/block/mmcblk0p2) I have a 128MB swap partition on my sdcard and the system is much more responsive than the same system without it. To partition the sdcard I use either my (rooted) Android phone with Amon_RA's Recovery v1.7.0.1 OR get the Gparted bootable CD and do it with a USB sdcard reader / writer. I got one from PB Tech for $18. Just make sure you re-partition the sdcard (maybe /dev/sdc) and not your hard drive (usually /dev/sda). Do one partition at a time (create / commit) so you can be certain the FAT32 partition is first and the Linux swap partition is second. You also need to remember to leave 128MB empty when you create the FAT32 partition. Hope I'm not telling you how to suck eggs here.

Lefeudedieu (French for "the fire of god") has also themed it fairly nicely.

To that, you also want to install "WEB FLV v1.5" and "YouTube v1.0". I can give you these if you need them. They give you full-screen YouTube streaming in high quality (compared to YouTUbe v1.3 without WEB FLV).

To install new firmware you get the firmware file and - usually - uncompress it with "7Zip". This - apparently - preserves symbolic links that WinRAR and WinZIP trash.......

You will find you have a folder called "\script"...and this contains the firmware to be installed. Copy the \script folder and everything in it to the root of the sdcard, either using an sdcard reader/writer or connect the tablet to your PC via USB and copy it on that way. Shut the tablet down and turn it back on...and it sees "\script" and installs whatever is in there.

Best to have the \script folder be the only thing on the sdcard. I have two M001 devices and one doesn't care if if there is loads of stuff on the sdcard....it just sees the \script...and installs OK. The other M001 appears to install OK, but when I boot it sticks at the boot animation forever. I can't explain why two apparently idenitical devices behave differently, but they do....and both work fine if the \script folder is the only thing on the sdcard. If you need to, copy other stuff off it first, then do the install....and the afterward copy it back on.

Finally, you must rename the \script folder to something else before re-booting, of the device will install the system all over again.

Once booted up, go into the Settings and perform the "Touchpanel Calibration". Use something with a fine tip (knitting needle, screwdriver tip, whatever)....NOT your finger. Your finger tip is too fat the results will be poor.

After that, go the to Android market and install "Home++". It's a light, powerful launcher with built in apps tray, task manager / killer / swapper, battery and wifi indicators, and customisable buttons for a variety of basic apps.

That's about it. Set up like this, with the swap paritition and Home++, your M001 will be about as good as it gets.

Crap compared to a much more expensive device....but a LOT better than when you unboxed it.

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jbard

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#380920 16-Sep-2010 21:56

Thank you so much linuxluver. Have been reading the forums over at slateroid.com, but this really cleared up what i need to do. Your a real asset to these forums :)

Linuxluver

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#380925 16-Sep-2010 22:08

jbard: Thank you so much linuxluver. Have been reading the forums over at slateroid.com, but this really cleared up what i need to do. Your a real asset to these forums :)

You're welcome. Loads of people have helped me, so just passing it on. :-)

If you have any questions, PM me. You'll need the WEB FLV v1.5 and YouTube v1.0.

If you have bittorrent, I host a torrent with all the apps from Offical firmware v1.9 bundled into a zip file...and I added those two files as well. You just want them.

The torrent is "EkenM001v19-apps.zip". If you search on that in Google or other serach engine, the top links are generally a bullseye for the relevant torrent file.

The official apps for photos and video and so one also the ones that use the M001 internal storage (about 1GB free). Regular android apps don't appear to be able to see or access that storage. Just remember if you re-flash the firmware the internal storage probably gets wiped.

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jbard

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#382028 19-Sep-2010 21:49

Ok thanks for you help, i have updated to relax now and its great.
Just out on interest what version of android are you running, im still running 1.6 as this is what was preloaded but i saw some on trademe saying they were preupdated eith 1.9.

Is it hard to update and is it worth it?

Thanks

Linuxluver

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#382208 20-Sep-2010 12:45

jbard: Ok thanks for you help, i have updated to relax now and its great.
Just out on interest what version of android are you running, im still running 1.6 as this is what was preloaded but i saw some on trademe saying they were preupdated eith 1.9.

Is it hard to update and is it worth it?

Thanks

There is only one version for these tablets: Android v1.6.

What those people are referring to are the various levels of firmware available from the makers of the devices.

They originally came with v1.7.2, then released v1.7.4....then v1.9 followed recently with v1.9.1 coming soon after. This is the "WMT SDK" firmware level cited on the boot screen at lower right. But they are all Android v1.6. The upgrades have improved speed through better driver support, but most of the issues addressed appeared to be with support for languages other than English. For example, if you ran the device with the Czech language selected, you got frequent force closes in acore. English-language users would not have seen these errors.

You (probably) can't run Android v2.1 or later on these devices. They only have 128MB of RAM and can - barely - run Android v1.6. :-)

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jbard

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#382236 20-Sep-2010 13:15

Ok cool, thanks for clearing this up. Would you recommend upgrading to v1.9.1 or is this to much hassle for the increased performance?

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Linuxluver

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#382305 20-Sep-2010 15:28

jbard: Ok cool, thanks for clearing this up. Would you recommend upgrading to v1.9.1 or is this to much hassle for the increased performance?

If you're on the latest Relax version you almost certainly already have a firmware based off the v1.9.1 drivers. Look at the numbers at lower right next time you boot up.

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ChillingSilence

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#382580 21-Sep-2010 08:52

Thanks very much Linuxluver, just ordered mine, came here and found this.

It's also worth noting there is a version 2.0 out now on that link that you posted! :)

Linuxluver

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#382593 21-Sep-2010 09:49

ChillingSilence: Thanks very much Linuxluver, just ordered mine, came here and found this.

It's also worth noting there is a version 2.0 out now on that link that you posted! :)

I best have a lurk then! Ta. :-)

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ChillingSilence

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#382665 21-Sep-2010 13:23

To be honest after using FroYo on my N1, it definitely feels sluggish... I've made the SWAP partition on the SD card, should I be doing anything to activate it, or is it clever enough to do-so automatically?

Linuxluver

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#382692 21-Sep-2010 14:17

ChillingSilence: To be honest after using FroYo on my N1, it definitely feels sluggish... I've made the SWAP partition on the SD card, should I be doing anything to activate it, or is it clever enough to do-so automatically?

Open a terminal (Better terminal) and enter "su". Allow root access.

Then type 'free' and press enter.

You should see a listing of memory status - both real and virtual (swap). If swap is 0 and 0 under both used and free, then it isn't being used. If it isn't being used it is probably because it was the defined as the second partition (/dev/block/mmcblk0p2).

Otherwise, you should see numbers other than zero there...and it is in use.

The M001 never match a Nexus one for speed. But it has a nice, big screen and can be made to be not TOO slow....though it won't be winning any speed races at any time.

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ChillingSilence

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#382717 21-Sep-2010 15:08

Ah OK thanks for that, dunno why I didn't think to do that.

Yeah it's using the SWAP file, only 4MB of SWAP used, the rest is free on the 140MB partition (approx).

Bummer that it's not letting me install the Swype beta, was really looking forward to that. Can't wait to get home when I can actually have a good play, not supposed to be using it at work, but I got it delivered here coz I couldn't wait :D

What's average battery life for yourself (very roughly) with WiFi on ?

jbard

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#382731 21-Sep-2010 15:36

my battery life is pretty good, was in full battery the other night and got 2 hours of full browing and downloading :)

jbard

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#382732 21-Sep-2010 15:37

*browsing

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