Archive for Hacks

Custom Kernel and ROM available for the European Galaxy S Wifi 4.0

Forum member SteveS cooked up a custom kernel and ROM for the European version of the Galaxy S Wifi 4.0. Note that this won’t work on the American or Korean version of the Galaxy (yet), nor on the Galaxy S Wifi 5.0.

Besides gaining root/superuser access to the device and various interface tweaks, this ROM includes the Voodoo sound patch, effectively fixing Samsung’s botched audio output. Voodoo fixes the amplification gain for less background hiss and louder output, and – similar to Cowon players – adds a hardware parametric EQ and a hardware 3D spatialization effect for the Wolfson audio CODEC as well.

Kernel changelog

  • Based on Original XXKPQ Kernel
  • Added Voodoo sound patches
  • Can work with XXKPN and XXKPQ stock Samsung ROM.
  • To use Voodoo sound you need to install Voodoo Control or Voodoo Control Plus

ROM changelog

  • Contains the latest STeVE’s Kernel 1.0: you don’t need to flash separately
  • Based on original XXKPQ Samsung stock ROM
  • Contains root and superuser permissions
  • Tweaked theme: Honeycomb status bar icons, transparent notification pane, ICS windows effects
  • CRT screen off animation
  • If you start from a XXKPN or XXKPQ you can skip wipe to keep your existing applications and settings

Check Steve’s forum thread for discussion and download links.

ASUCI v2 shows the J3/S9/X7 from a new angle

(Warning: If you’re not immune to ear-hemorrhage-inducing pop music, you better turn down the volume on your speakers/headphones before starting the video.)

The Cowon J3 is far from being abandoned by the user interface modding community (and the S9 and X7 benefit from being compatible). Well known Korean UCI designer Asurada presents a teaser video of his newest creation, ASUCI v2.

Using 45 degree tilted interface elements would usually be just a gimmick, but Asurada obviously put a lot of thought into the design and usability of his theme. Next to ergonomic left-handed usage I especially like the increased length of the slider bar, allowing for more precise scrolling in a track. It seems to hit a quite sweet middle ground between a portrait- and a landscape-oriented interface.

[ASUCI v2 official site (Korean) via iAudiophile]

Hacked firmware available for the Samsung R0

It’s a dilemma one encounters with many a portable player: manufacturers design nice hardware, but the accompanying firmwares lack in features and/or usability.  The Samsung R0 is certainly not the player with the worst firmware out there, but Italian hacker Lorenz092 and his co-conspirators thought they could improve the user experience nevertheless.

Choosing the R0 as a modding target is certainly a smart move – the R0 is quite popular, has a nice aluminum housing with lots of tactile buttons, it is inexpensive – and it runs on Linux. Also, in the long run, modding its stock firmware might pave the way for a Rockbox port.

Currently, the modded firmware is at version 2.10 (based on official firmware 1.25). It features improved translations for several languages, removes the – for most people – annoying startup and shutdown sounds, changes the look of the battery status indicator, changes the key press time used for resetting the player, and – biggest of all – implements a Device Rescue Kit (DRK). This DRK feature basically means you can recover the player from being bricked, without having to sent it back to Samsung for fixing. Unbricking the player yourself sure beats paying money and waiting several weeks for it to return, methinks.

In future versions of his custom firmware Lorenz092 wants to implement a CPU downclocking feature, which might effectively double the R0′s battery life. Other planned features are integrating the player’s SD slot with its internal database, tweaking the sleep mode time, and several things more. This is getting very interesting.

Read the forum thread, or jump straight to the post containing the download link.

Android Market Hack for the Cowon D3

The moment everyone – well, everyone who owns a D3 – waited for is here: Android Market is working on the Cowon D3. Forum member roebeet posted his full installation instructions over at the iAudiophile forums.

It’s not the easiest or most straightforward hack, but anyone should get it working without issues. The hack requires ADB (Android Debug Bridge, from the SDK) and root access (z4root, Superuser) as prerequisites, and some commandline actions. It should be manageable in both Linux and Windows. Since Cowon managed to lock the D3 down properly, this hack will have to be repeated/adjusted for each new firmware version the D3 might get in future.

While it is nice that Cowon employees started posting selected Android apps for download/sideload in our D3 software forum, it sure feels right to cut out the middle man and go for the full, unrestricted Market straight away.

However, there seems to be more to Cowon not supporting Market on the D3 than monetary licensing issues. Unfortunately the D3 runs on a somewhat exotic Telechips processor that isn’t properly supported by many apps available (the ever popular Angry Birds won’t work well on the D3, for example), and it seemingly doesn’t have enough RAM as well. It might have been a bad choice by Cowon to use this processor instead of a well supported, say, TI OMAP… but that’s how it is.

Cowon D3 users now have access to the Market – make the best of it, but don’t be surprised if things don’t work as well as on an Archos tablet or similar.

Update: Cowon representatives posted APKs of alternatives to the official Google Market in our forums: 1MobileMarket, AndAppStore, and Slideme.

Cowon X5 SDXC Mod

Those classic HDD players just won’t go away… Some time ago we already had Godbes’ 128GB SSD ZV:M and my Cowon X5 CompactFlash mod on the front page. Now forum member Razorblader tried a more modern approach to beefing up his venerable X5 – with a state of the art 64GB SDXC card.

One advantage of SDXC over CF would be that it is a more future-proof storage medium, and that it will get huge capacities in the foreseeable future. Can’t wait for the first half-terabyte X5, H300, or ZV:M.

While CompactFlash always was the medium of choice for professional DSLRs and as a cheaper SSD replacement in computers, due to ATA/IDE support, this seems to be changing at the moment – with SDXC cards promising more storage space, almost comparable speeds (for now), and a smaller form factor.

Razorblader used his 64GB SDXC card in an SD-to-CF adapter, then put this contraption in a CF-to-IDE adapter, which finally is connected to the X5′s IDE cable. This sums up to about $120 for 64GB of solid state storage. Not bad at all.

While most such mods are made to players running Rockbox, Razorblader took care to get the stock Cowon firmware working as well, by modifying the master boot record of the SDXC card. Sure is lovely having some BBE sound enhancements with your 64GB of tunes.

Read the full mod instructions in the forum thread.

Android Market and Root for Archos Gen 8 Devices

Archos’ current range of Android players/tablets sure are some of the best bang for the buck at the moment. If one wishes connectivity on the go, the Archos 28 to 101 deliver rather high quality hardware (not the screens but the innards), for a price that isn’t much higher than Chinese off-brand devices.

There’s two things however that are obvious drawbacks with the Archos Internet Tablets. The minor issue is a lack of root user access (same as most other Android devices), the major flaw is that they have no Android Market support.

While the advantage of Market access is pretty obvious – can’t have Angry Birds or similar vitally important apps without it – having a root user on an Archos is nice to have, but probably not quite as essential. There are two ways of gaining root on an Archos – one involves installing Archos’ SDE and voids your warranty; the other one is an easy single-ish-click affair, perfectly safe and reversible. It’s called Archangel (here’s the direct link to the newest Archangel version).

While the system still stays read-only with Archangel, contrary to the SDE/custom kernel rooting method, there are still some wonderful things one can do with it. Some examples include moving the Linux swap file from the player’s internal memory to the SD card or disabling it entirely, supposedly prolonging the life of the memory since it doesn’t get bombarded with random R/W access. Another application (which might be morally debatable) is loading a hosts file at startup that blocks ads – in any browser and the embedded ones in applications.

Thanks to these kind hackers, both Market and root access can be added easily, as linked above.  Thanks as well to the XDA Developers forum for hosting all this knowledge that makes life just a bit easier.

Porting Rockbox and Android to the Samsung YP-R0

Since October 2010 forum members slade and nik1105 have been working hard on porting Rockbox to the Samsung R0. While this port isn’t ready for prime time yet, the developers recently started to take advantage of the R0′s open source Linux-based stock firmware as well – by attempting an Android port.

While the advantages of Rockbox are obvious on any portable music player, Android might seem strange at first on a device that a) has no Wifi or other Internet connectivity and b) has no touch screen but is controlled via tactile buttons. In the end, despite the lack of Android Market accessibility, one could still install .apk apps manually on it. If the developers manage to map Android’s touch screen controls to the plethora of tactile buttons available on the R0, some apps and games might actually be easier to operate than with their intended control scheme. I for one am excited to see where this goes – especially since other Linux-based Samsung players might benefit from this effort as well in the future.

The R0 seems like the perfect candidate for such experiments – it’s  very affordable, has good sound quality, a decent screen, a MicroSD expansion slot, and a fetching full metal housing. For its low price, the R0 is a top notch player – just held back a bit by its basic (and sometimes buggy) stock firmware. If the developers succeed with either Rockbox or Android, I’m sure a lot of people would be happy about having the choice between three systems to run on the thing.

Watch the forum thread for further developments.

Creative ZV:M 128GB SSD Mod: Better, Stronger, Faster

Forum member godbes was courageous enough to order a 128GB solid-state drive for his venerable Creative Zen Vision:M shot-in-the-dark style  – for € 370. Not being sure if the fancy SSD actually worked as a replacement for the 1.8″ HDD with the rather dated hardware in the player, one can imagine how he felt before the story turned out to have a happy end after all. Who dares wins – in this case, probably the biggest, fastest ZV:M to date, with twice the capacity of the beefiest flash memory players available to date.

Similar to the Cowon X5 or the iriver H100/H300, the Creative ZV:M still has a cult following among dedicated users, despite not being Rockbox-able or otherwise overly future-proof. Many people still think it’s the best player Creative ever made, and everything after it wasn’t quite up to expectations. Be that as it may, those were the heydays for portable hard disk players, right before flash memory took over the mainstream with faster bootup and access speeds, slimmer form factors, and improved durability due to no sensitive movable parts – yet at the cost of much smaller capacities and higher prices.

Seems godbes gapped the bridge from the past to the present quite nicely – it’s definitely not a cheap mod, but it’s way cool and encouraging what one can do with presumed ‘obsolete’ hardware.

Read more details in the forum thread.

How to Sync a Zune HD with Mac OS X

Forum member nate8nate found out that the Zune HD’s closed ecosystem might be not so closed after all. By installing Windows 7 Phone Connector for OS X and enabling the Zune via commandline he managed to successfully connect to his Mac, and transfer files to the player.

Let’s see how long it takes until that awesome undocumented feature dangerous bug is removed, for your own safety and convenience. Or maybe it’s a sign that Microsoft is loosening its iron grip on their walled garden a bit.  Well, that was enough metaphor abuse for one day. Either way, rumors about Zune HD support for Mac have been around for quite a while already – of course support for Zune Marketplace on Mac is a whole other issue.

Check out the full instructions in the forum thread.

32GB SSD Hacked into a Zune 120

32gb-flash-zune.jpg

If it doesn’t exist why not build it? One of our readers did just that. Searching for a replacement hard drive for his old school iRiver H300, abi reader Andrew, decided to go with an SSD drive to avoid future hard drive failures. He was unable to find the proper SSD drive to replace the H300s so he looked for a broken hard drive player to marry with an SSD drive.

Not wanting to pay $300 for a new flash player, he wanted to go cheap and hack something cool together. He was able to dig up a broken Zune 120 and a refurbished SanDisk EIDE/PATA SSD drive for a total cost of $130 bucks off of eBay.

Want one? Andrew has made a nice detailed guide- you should be able to follow and make your own.