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FirmwareChangelog

Page history last edited by Vasile 14 years, 10 months ago

 

Changelog

 

If you are looking for official "Stock" firmware, please go to the dedicated page.

 

WARNING !!! WARNING !!! WARNING !!!  These are mostly alpha or beta versions, so some bugs are expected. Please DO NOT use them if you are not comfortable with debricking your MG35 using a serial cable. If you don't know what "debricking" or "serial cable" means, just don't use any of these firmware versions!

 

Stable and development versions of the firmware can be downloaded from project's page at Sourceforge, but we may provide links to some older versions. There is also a mirror hosting some alpha versions.

 

 

 


 

You may notice some gaps in the versioning, especially on alphas. That's mainly because there were some quick bug-fix releases with very restricted audience, so we don't think they worth mentioning here.

 

 

1.5.2-1083

Andrei's first shot in recreating 1.5.2.3-a8, using kernel 2.4.17.

 

1.5.2.3-a8 (alpha)

 

Leon's testing confirmed that this version's ext2 is stable.

 

1.5.2.3-a7 (alpha)

 

Thanks to some quick bug reports from our early testers, we have a new release of the developer firmware

 

New in this release:

- stupid-ftpd

 

Fixed in this release:

- rdate applet (was missing from busybox)

- hosts issue

 

The stupid-ftpd.conf in /etc should be self explanatory for anyone looking to change ftp user names, passwords, port number, action-based permissions, etc.

 

Details:

- all executables from / are now moved to /bin. In / there are just symlinks to the real ones. By using unionfs of /usr/rbin over /bin one can "overwrite" the built-in executables with new versions from the hard drive (/usr/rbin), so the main programs can be replaced/tested without the need to reflash.

- /minimod is now a link to /bin/minimod, which in turn is a hush script directly calling /sbin/insmod

- all the files in /, togheter with /bin, /etc and /sbin are mirrored to /org. Because of cramfs they will not require additional storage space. This is needed in case one replaces any of the tools in /bin or /sbin (see above, the unionfs discussion), but for some reason still needs acces to the original executable.

- dvdplayer patched (se dvdplayer page for details)

- fileplayer.bin is in fact the new "play" dispatcher. It will use the real players from /bin/player. In turn, the specific players for avi, ogg, pcm, thx and wma are in fact the original fileplayer, renamed. The mpeg and mp4 players are also the original ones, renamed. The only new one is the mp3 player, which was rewritten by John and now supports playing remote streams.

- init sequence was changed, /etc/.sashrc calls second-level scripts from /etc/init.d

 

1.5.2.3-a6 (alpha)

 

I'm very proud to announce the new source build system, adapted from OptWare. After a major overhaul of the repository, you can now simply and easily download and build the mg35tools software from scratch (source) -- for most pieces of the firmware and many extension packages. This work was seeded by Leon's generous donation of a toolchain configuration for OptWare, and strongly encouraged by Vasile's feedback and reasoning throughout the design process -- many thanks are deserved by both.

 

Along with ipkg (firmware, above), a number of other packages have been adapted from OptWare:

- vim-7.1 text editor (supports 256-color text mode)

- elinks-0.11.4 text-based web browser (also supports 256-color text)

- sqlite2 sql database

- python-2.4 scripting language (sqlite,expat,socket,xmlrpc,urllib,etc.)

- spidermonkey JavaScript engine

- e2fsprogs (with ext3 support)

- openssl (ssl key generation, certificate signing, etc)

- cURL url downloader (ssl support coming soon)

- wget http/ftp downloader (full version)

- bzip2 high quality compression program

- netcat raw TCP/UDP network read/write tool

- iconv - convert between ascii/unicodes (UTF-8, UCS-4, et al)

- ncurses terminal control/capabilities library

- dropbear ssh server

 

Most of the above packages should (!?) be ready to install at the telnet/command prompt; see Installing Packages, below.

 

1.5.2.3-a4 and -a5 (alpha)

 

Fixed the mount issue. New NTFS and EXT3 versions (does anybody still have any of these? Please contact us if so...):

 

Ext3 (no NTFS):  MG35_1.5.2.3-a4-JD_Eng_Devel.upgrade

NTFS (no Ext3): MG35_1.5.2.3-a5-JD_Eng_Devel.upgrade

 

Current issues (mostly mp3 related):

- mp3 only plays to analog output

- mp3 doesn't seek,ffwd,rewd

- mp3 does not work in slideshow mode

- still stutters on ultra-high bitrate SMB ISOs

 

Can anyone opine as to the relative sensitivity / speed of the key repeat function now vs before?

 

For convenience, you can download the entire shoutcast radio station list (all sorted by genre) and uncompress them onto your hard drive.

 

1.5.2.3-a3 (alpha)

 

Another day... another alpha.

 

Here's alpha 3: MG35_1.5.2.3-a3-JD_Eng_Devel.upgrade

 

Same added features as yesterday, but only this issue:

- cannot ffwd.rewd,seek mp3 streams/files

 

This *SHOULD* be safe for wide consumption, but if you don't have a serial cable, wait until we get some feedback before installing it.

 

 

1.5.2.3-a2 (alpha)

 

That's part of the 1.5.2.3 series, just starting alpha. Unless you have a serial cable, you will likely want to wait (see buglist below).

 

Some new features:

- .sh, .app, .ext, .mg files show up in photo, music, video modes, run

when activated

- .url files show up in playlist/audio modes for remote MP3 streams

- plays remote mp3/pls/m3u/shoutcast streams

- (as per 1.5.2.1-LK) ext3 support in kernel/dvdplayer

- (as per 1.5.2.1-LK) completely reworked sashrc, /etc/init.d

- finally includes new GPL fip driver

- directories starting with "_" and "." are always hidden now (except

".." parent)

 

And the list of currently known bugs:

- /usr/bin/initrc not executed (not confirmed)

- cannot ffwd.rewd,seek mp3 streams/files

- static IP addressing not correctly identified (always DHCP)

- libio streaming memory leak (only relevant for console mode playlists)

- no key repeating (volume, arrows)

- may freeze if no gateway is defined and you try to play an internet stream (not confirmed)

 

As always, we welcome bug reports on our sourceforge bug tracker and feature requests on the wiki! Leon et al: when we've resolved some of these bugs, I'll get the language packs out. :)

 

Finally, this release would still be unusably buggy were it not for Vasile and his testing of the new streaming and playlist support; special thanks must be extended to him for his dedicated work on this.

 

 

 

 

 

1.5.2.1-a2 07-06-2008

- e2fsck: auto-run after driver load, before partition mount; for

first 3 partitions only

- boot: sashrc has been split into various components in /etc/init.d

- boot: dvd.wait delays until /tmp/{idedone,fsckdone} exist

- sash: if, while, and test handling has been significantly debugged

 

Some findings after a two weeks of LK-a2 firmware testing with ext3:

1. I was not able to access player using NDAS with linux or Windows. I've compiled ximeta sources and after registration there was no slots available. Windows also showed that NDAS is offline. So I suspect that this releas has home troubles with NDAS.

2. Fonts for subtitles that were omitted from this firmware were replaced with builtin fonts. Small fonts but workable.

3. pure-ftpd does not work for a long time. After approx. 4GB of upload it freezes. I cannot use kill -9 to remove it, so I suspect that there are problems with this version.

4. Otherwise, playing various titles showed no problems with ext3. It is stable enough for everyday use. Jut ftpd freeze is annoying as it requires reboot that cannot be handled through command line as there is no reboot command. Here is sample shutdown after freeze:

 

/> shutdown

/usr/bin/exitrc: No such file or directory

/usr/bin/exit: No such file or directory

umount: /iso: Invalid argument

umount: /cdrom/Partition1: Device or resource busy

 

 

1.5.2.1-a1 06-06-2008

Turns out the kernel issue was just a config file problem, easy to fix.

- Everything except httpd/inetd, /www and /fonts are still (still) in the image

- e2fsck has been added, along with FUSE and the ext3 kernel drivers.

- DVDplayer has been patched to (a) touch /tmp/idedone when it's finished mounting the HDD partitions, and (b) check all 4 major FS types for each partition.

- sashrc now waits until it sees /tmp/idedone to run find_devel

- /usr/fonts is NOT bound to /fonts, due to a lack of --bind option in the default /bin/mount (possible to fix in eg. find_devel); dvdplayer

also seems to load fonts before IDE drivers

- e2fsck is NOT run since dvdplayer.bin both (a) loads the IDE drivers and (b) mounts the disks, leaving no place to actually run e2fsck

 This leaves ~12kB in flash for other stuff

 

1.5.2.0-b3 (beta)

Some big news today: ntfs-3g drivers are completed and working! This means full support for read/write/create/delete/truncate/extend of files on NTFS partitions.

 

After integrating the FUSE module with our kernel, I stole the MG-350's fusermount and ntfs-3g userspace driver. These seem to work very well, *but* writing with allocation is pretty slow (~1MB/s), and it takes up alot of RAM (~2.5MB). Reading is fairly fast and leaves quite enough RAM to decode 1GB/h MP4 video. You'll need to switch back to the kernel NTFS driver for playing MPEG-2, however, since the 3g driver is CPU intensive (testing this surprisingly didn't cause a crash - it was just silly slow).

 

USAGE


 

The drivers need to be loaded either manually or at boot time by /usr/bin/init.

 

To install ntfs-3g:

- unzip ntfs3g.zip into /usr/bin

- make sure /usr/bin is in your path (it is by default)

 

To use ntfs-3g to mount the third partition:

- insmod /usr/bin/fuse.o

- umount /cdrom/Partition3

- ntfs-3g /dev/discs/disc0/part3 /cdrom/Partition3 &

 

To restore the default ntfs driver on the third partition:

- umount /cdrom/Partition3

- mount -t ntfs /dev/discs/disc0/part3 /cdrom/Partition3

- rmmod fuse

(NOTE: The fuse kernel module only takes up about 25kB of memory, so unloading it is highly optional.)

 

If you have any questions or problems, or any requests for ports of tools (other than bash!), please let me know. Recent ports include: enhanced ctorrent, lua, sqlite, ipkg, and etherwake, as well as a variety of development libraries. Check out the wiki for more info.

 

1.5.2.0-b2

 

I've added some retry/delay logic to find_devel while attempting the first mount.

 

1.5.2.0-a1 (alpha)

 

I'm happy to announce the availability of the first alpha Developer Firmware in the 1.5.2 series. This release includes many upgrades, such as:

 

- updated web server (micro_httpd + inetd)

- updated telnet server (utelnetd)

- over 85 different shell commands, including:

--- 3 different interactive shells (sash, msh, hush)

--- lots of common utilities (gzip/gunzip, tar, vi, ps, grep, tee, ...)

 

 

- unionfs stackable file systems

- automatic mount fat32/ntfs read-write

- automatic mount ramfs+unionfs onto /etc (unless you do it first)

- basic IANA protocol/service databases

- pivotroot support (for HDD/net root filesystem)

- new stable development kernel

--- (new) ntfs read/write (only within pre-allocated files)

--- smbfs (high bitrate iso's play great!)

--- ext2 (try a loopback from ntfs/fat32/smbfs rw file source)

--- unix sockets (more humane IPC)

--- serial console (if you have a cable)

 

While this is technically an alpha release, I've tested it pretty thoroughly, so unless someone finds a serious issue, I suspect it should be a safe upgrade for anyone. Barring said misfortune, this also marks

the creation of our first complete stable kernel from source.

 

1.45-1.5.2 = lost history :-(

 

 

V1.44a (pbarette)

Download Readme

This firmware adds telnet functionality to the stock Mediagate v1.4.4 firmware

image. It also replaces the stock GUI graphics with a custom set created by EmuMannen.

 

The default telnet shell is sash, though busybox provides a lash shell as well.

The lash shell is nicer to work with via telnet as it deals correctly with

pipes and redirection and properly handles line-wrap deletion from the terminal.

In addition, lash provides a command history accessible via the "UP" key.

 

Lash, however, lacks some basic functionality that may be required in a test

environment. For instance, sash's built in umount can be useful if you mount

a different fs over the /bin directory and don't have a umount binary.

 

Bugs:

 

1. lash lacks echo

We need an "echo" symlink in /bin. Workaround: use "busybox echo" instead.

 

2. Thumbnail preview

If you are in PHOTOS...And you have the Thumbnail preview turned on...

The little graphic of the camera is right over top the thumbnail preview so

you can't see it...The little graphic of the camera should be moved so it's

not over the thumbnail preview...

 

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