wpbook:~ wolf$ mvn -version
Maven version: 2.0.6
wpbook:~ wolf$


One way to get an up-to-date Maven version on your Mac would be to use Mac Ports and Porticus:

1. Download and install MacPorts
2. Download and install Porticus
3. Start Porticus
4. Search for "maven" in Porticus
5. Install

Installing Maven without MacPorts is a little bit more involved but can be done in 5 minutes or less.

1. Download Maven from http://maven.apache.org/download.html.
2. Unpacking will create a apache-maven-2.0.9 folder, probably on your desktop. Move this folder into /usr/local, like this:
   
   sudo mv ~/Desktop/apache-maven-2.0.9 /usr/local/
   
   
3. To make it easy to replace this release with future releases, we are going to create a symbolic link that we are going to use when referring to Maven:
   
   sudo ln -s /usr/local/apache-maven-2.0.9 /Library/Maven
   
   
4. Next step is making Maven executable:
   
   chmod ug+x /Library/Maven/bin/mvn
chmod ug+x /Library/Maven/bin/m2
   
   
5. Now we change the ownership of the /Libaray/Maven folder hierarchy:
   
   sudo chown -R your_username /Library/Maven
   
   
6. Last step is to update ~/.bash_profile and to verify the update:
   Add the following to the bash_profile:
   
   export M2_HOME=/Library/Maven
export M2=$M2_HOME/bin
export JAVA_HOME=/Library/Java/Home/
export PATH=$PATH:$M2

   
   and open a Terminal and enter:
   
   mvn -version
   
   

• Y.Swetake for instance makes Perl, CGI, and PHP scripts available that can be deployed on a Web Server.
• Even easier, Google's Chart API can be used on a dynamic site, to create QR-Codes on the fly without having to install any additional libraries, see example below.

Generating QR Codes dynamically on the fly, using Google's Chart API


function getGoogleQR($url,$size ='150',$EC_level='L',$margin='0') {
   $url = urlencode($url);
   $gapi= 'http://chart.apis.google.com/chart';
   return '<img src=".'$gapi'.?chs='.$size.'x'.$size.'&cht=qr&chld='.$EC_level.'|'.$margin.'&chl='.$url.'" alt="QR-Code" width="'.$size.'" height="'.$size.'"/>';
}


Give it a try, there are lots of sites allowing you to generate QR-Codes on the Web. Here is just one: KAYWA QR-Code Generator. A QR Code Decoder, converting an image back to the original test string can be found at http://www.drhu.org/QRCode/QRDecoder.php
Btw, ALT-based NeoMedia Technologies' free iPhone application NeoReader performs beautifully, encoding QR codes and launching URLs in Mobile Safari.

Again, we need to get the sources from the SVN server on java.net here: https://phoneme.dev.java.net/svn/phoneme. Don't get everything, just the trunk (i.e. phoneme/components/cdc/trunk) and tools (i.e. phoneme/components/tools) folder. However, trunk and tools need to end up on the same level (like siblings) on the build machine.

Unfortunately, the currently available trunk only builds on older Macs that is Macs built on the Power-PC architecture. For newer Macs, i.e. Intel based machines, a patch needs to be installed into the just created trunk folder.
Markus Heberling has made this patch available here: http://markus.heberling.net/wp-uploads/2008/04/phoneme-cdc-darwin-x86.zip. The three folders in this patch just need to be added into the source tree in trunk:

• patch cdc/src/darwin-x86 becomes trunk/src/darwin-x86
• patch cdc/src/darwin-x86 becomes trunk/src/darwin-x86
• patch cdc/buld/darwin-x86-mac becomes trunk/build/darwin-x86-mac

All ducks are in a row now to kick-off the PhoneME build. But there is still one final decision to be made, what kind of PhoneME runtime should be built?
The J2ME_CLASSLIB argument provided to Make, defines what class library will eventually be created:

• cdc - (default) will create a limited class library (cdc.jar 884 KBytes) that is meant for testing purposes only.
• foundation - creates the full Foundation Profile class library (foundation.jar 1.475 KBytes).
• personal - creates the full Personal Profile class library (personal.jar 2.047 KBytes).

Just like you would expect, compared to the Personal Profile, Foundation is missing java.applet.* and java.awt.*. And compared to the Foundation Profile, the cdc.jar is missing some of the networking and security related classes.
Running Java applications on a Mac that depend on the Personal Profile, also require The X Window System (available at http://xquartz.macosforge.org/trac/wiki) and QT3, the Cross-Platform GUI application framework, installed. QT3 is best installed using FINK and Fink Commander. I usually prefer Porticus but even after several attempts could not make Personal Profile depending Java Apps run. Only after installing QT3 using Fink, did they work flawlessly.

  cd trunk/build/darwin-x86-mac
  make J2ME_CLASSLIB=foundation


With the Java Runtime Environment built, we can now either use and ANT script like this, to build (and deploy) a Java app:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <!-- Copyright (c) 2009 Wolf Paulus - http://wolfpaulus.com OpenWrt / PhoneME / Java Project build.xml --> <project name="fon" default="deploy" basedir="."> <!-- =================================================================== --> <!-- Initialization target --> <!-- =================================================================== --> <target name="init" description="initialize properties and folder variables"> <tstamp/> <!-- remote target information --> <property name="remote.addr" value="192.168.1.1"/> <property name="remote.uid" value="root"/> <property name="remote.pw" value="admin"/> <property name="remote.dir" value="/usr/java"/> <!-- Project Attributes --> <property name="build.id" value="1001"/> <property name="version" value="1.0 (#${build.id})"/> <property name="year" value="2009"/> <property name="packages" value="com.carlsbadcubes.*"/> <!-- Folders --> <property name="src.dir" location="src"/> <property name="build.dir" location="build"/> <property name="build.src" location="build/src"/> <property name="build.dest" location="build/classes"/> <property name="build.javadocs" location="build/apidocs"/> <!-- Replace tokens in source code before compilation --> <filter token="year" value="${year}"/> <filter token="version" value="${version}"/> <filter token="date" value="${TODAY}"/> <filter token="log" value="true"/> <filter token="verbose" value="true"/> <!-- Complier Settings --> <property name="compile.source" value="1.4"/> <property name="compile.target" value="1.4"/> <property name="compile.compiler" value="modern"/> <property name="compile.debug" value="true"/> <property name="compile.optimize" value="true"/> <property name="compile.deprecation" value="true"/> <property name="JSDK.home" location="/Users/wolf/Work/Embedded/phoneme-advanced/OSX/phoneme-x86"/> <!-- Compilation class path --> <path id="compile.classpath"> <pathelement location="${JSDK.home}/btclasses.zip"/> <pathelement location="${JSDK.home}/lib/foundation.jar"/> </path> </target> <!-- =================================================================== --> <!-- Clean up --> <!-- =================================================================== --> <target name="clean" depends="init" description="Removes build the distribution files"> <delete dir="${build.dir}"/> </target> <!-- =================================================================== --> <!-- Prepares the build directories and souce --> <!-- =================================================================== --> <target name="prepare" depends="clean,init" description="Creates build folder(s) and copies sources"> <mkdir dir="${build.dir}"/> <!-- create directories --> <mkdir dir="${build.src}"/> <mkdir dir="${build.dest}"/> <!-- copy src files --> <copy todir="${build.src}" filtering="yes"> <fileset dir="${src.dir}" excludes="**/*.png"/> </copy> <!-- copy doc images (e.g. uml diagrams)--> <copy todir="${build.src}" filtering="no"> <fileset dir="${src.dir}" includes="**/*.png"/> </copy> </target> <!-- =================================================================== --> <!-- Compiles the source directory --> <!-- =================================================================== --> <target name="compile" depends="prepare" description="Compiles the source code"> <javac srcdir="${build.src}" destdir="${build.dest}" debug="${compile.debug}" optimize="${compile.optimize}" deprecation="${compile.deprecation}" compiler="${compile.compiler}" target="${compile.target}" source="${compile.source}"> <classpath refid="compile.classpath"/> </javac> </target> <!-- =================================================================== --> <!-- Package Classes into JAR --> <!-- =================================================================== --> <target name="package" depends="compile" description="Package Classes into JAR"> <jar destfile="${ant.project.name}.jar"> <manifest> <attribute name="Built-By" value="${user.name}"/> <attribute name="Implementation-Vendor" value="Carlsbad Cubes."/> <attribute name="Implementation-Title" value="${ant.project.name}.jar"/> <attribute name="Implementation-Version" value="${version}"/> </manifest> <fileset dir="${build.dest}"/> </jar> </target> <!-- =================================================================== --> <!-- Deploy to target (opt ant task, http://www.jcraft.com/jsch/) --> <!-- =================================================================== --> <taskdef name="scp" classname="org.apache.tools.ant.taskdefs.optional.ssh.Scp"/> <target name="deploy" depends="package" description="Deploy on to target hardware"> <scp file="${ant.project.name}.jar" todir="${remote.uid}:${remote.pw}@${remote.addr}:${remote.dir}"/> </target> </project>

.. or create a new JSDK in an IDE, like IntelliJ IDEA
you may have to rename the trunk/build/darwin-x86-mac/cvm into trunk/build/darwin-x86-mac/java

Turning a WiFi Router into a general-purpose Network Device

CSFU Campus, H 123, Sat. 01/24/2009, 3:45 - 5:00 PM

Embedded systems are increasingly present in our life and quite a few of them can be repurposed (a.k.a. hacked), to make them even more useful.
The purpose of this session is to have fun and give you some inside of what's involved in turning a $30 wireless router into a general purpose embedded network device, running the LINUX OS and a full featured Java Runtime environment.
We will take a closer look at some popular Router OS distributions, like OpenWrt, DD-WRT, FreeWRT, Tomato, or X-Wrt and show how to flash the Fonera (FON) WiFi router with a vanilla OpenWrt distribution. The FON is a very small, relatively simple, and inexpensive router, built on the AR531x/231x Atheros WiSoC (Wireless System-on-a-Chip) with an integrated 32-bit MIPS R4000-class processor running at 183.5 MHz, comes with 8 Mbytes Flash Memory and 16 MByte RAM. In short, it has all the attributes required to be added our digital playground.

Embedded OS Development / Kernel Architecture, Implementation and port for Embedded Systems
OpenWrt is a Linux distribution optimized especially for embedded devices and surprisingly, the OpenWrt kernel configuration is done with the help of a character based UI. OpenWrt also comes with a lightweight package management system (IPKG or more recently OPKG), meaning that features that have not already been built into the kernel, can be added later, at runtime. As an example, we will take a look at how a JavaVM could be built, packaged, and deployed, or built directly into the kernel.

Java UI Generation at Runtime with SwiXML

CSFU Campus, H 123, Sat. 01/24/2009, 2:30 - 3:45 AM

SwiXML is a small GUI generating engine for Java applications and applets. Graphical User Interfaces are described in XML documents that are parsed at runtime and rendered into javax.swing objects. Theoretically, you can look at SwiXML as an XML based domain-specific language, allowing to declare Java Swing GUIs. The SwiXML engine will then later at runtime, take a GUI declaration and create that User-Interface on the fly, just like a Web Browser would do with an HTML document.
SwiXML doesn't introduce any new layout managers or component classes. Instead, it operates directly on the Swing component classes using introspection.

Burn Baby Burn .. Again

The ATmega328 comes in the same 28-lead PDIP packaging and replacing the chip was straight forward and took only a couple of seconds; burning the boot loader on the other hand - just like last time - took a little longer. The Arduino board has the AVR typical 6 header ICSP, an in-system programming port, which allows burning a boot loader without removing the microcontroller chip from the board. At least for Mac users, I recommend AVR's AVRISP mkII (ATAVRIPS2-ND), available for $34 at DigiKey.
The AVRISP can program newer 8-bit RISC microcontrollers (with ICSP Interface) through the USB port. The target board still needs to be powered and its regular ports should be disconnected from other devices.

Since switching form the ATmege8 to the 16, the Arduino's Development Environment has also switched to avrdude, the software that loads programs from your machine onto the chips - manipulates the ROM and EEPROM contents of AVR microcontrollers. To use avrdude successfully with the new ATmega3258P, you may need to update its configuration file somewhere like here: /Applications/arduino-0013/hardware/tools/avr/etc, (look for the configuration file in the Resources areas below).

Preparation ...

At this point, the Arduino's microcontroller had been replaced with the 32 KByte ATmega328P and everything but the ICSP port had been disconnected. The Arduino board itself was powered by a 7.5V 500mA power supply and the AVRISP-mkII connected the board with the Mac's USB port.
On the software side, avrdude 5.5 was installed, the avrdude.conf file had been updated, and the ATmega328 boot-loader was made available here /AT328.hex, (look for the configuration file in the Resources areas below).

Burning, Fuses, and Flashing the Bootloader

Burning a new boot loader is a three-step process: unlocking the boot loader segment, uploading the new boot loader, and looking boot loader segment again. For an AVR microcontroller, the closest thing to a configuration file is its set of fuses. Fuses are used to configure important system parameters and a few important but obscure options can only be set through the ICSP. For instance, the ATmega328 defaults to the use of a 1 MHz internal clock and would ignoring the 16 MHz crystal on the Arduino board, if not told otherwise, through a fuse setting.

1. Unlocking the boot loader segment, erase the chip, and set fuses (set boot loader size to 2K words [=2KByte]: 0x3800-0xFFFF, set clock speed to external 16 MHz)
   avrdude -p m328p -b 115200 -P usb -c avrispmkII -V -e -U lock:w:0x3F:m -U hfuse:w:0xD8:m -U lfuse:w:0xFF:m -U efuse:w:0x03:m
2. Uploading the boot loader
   avrdude -p m328p -b 115200 -P usb -c avrispmkII -V -D -U flash:w:/AT328.hex:i
3. Re-locking the boot loader segment
   avrdude -p m328p -b 115200 -P usb -c avrispmkII -V -U lock:w:0x0F:m

Check out the Atmel AVR Fuse Calculator for more details.

Burn Log

wpbook:~ wolf$ avrdude -p m328p -b 115200 -P usb -c avrispmkII -V -e -U lock:w:0x3F:m -U hfuse:w:0xD8:m -U lfuse:w:0xFF:m -U efuse:w:0x03:m avrdude: AVR device initialized and ready to accept instructions Reading | ################################################## | 100% 0.10s avrdude: Device signature = 0x1e950f avrdude: erasing chip avrdude: reading input file "0x3F" avrdude: writing lock (1 bytes): Writing | ################################################## | 100% 0.03s avrdude: 1 bytes of lock written avrdude: reading input file "0xD8" avrdude: writing hfuse (1 bytes): Writing | ################################################## | 100% 0.10s avrdude: 1 bytes of hfuse written avrdude: reading input file "0xFF" avrdude: writing lfuse (1 bytes): Writing | ################################################## | 100% 0.03s avrdude: 1 bytes of lfuse written avrdude: reading input file "0x03" avrdude: writing efuse (1 bytes): Writing | ################################################## | 100% 0.10s avrdude: 1 bytes of efuse written avrdude: safemode: Fuses OK avrdude done. Thank you. wpbook:~ wolf$ avrdude -p m328p -b 115200 -P usb -c avrispmkII -V -D -U flash:w:/AT328.hex:i avrdude: AVR device initialized and ready to accept instructions Reading | ################################################## | 100% 0.10s avrdude: Device signature = 0x1e950f avrdude: reading input file "/AT328.hex" avrdude: writing flash (32670 bytes): Writing | ################################################## | 100% 63.68s avrdude: 32670 bytes of flash written avrdude: safemode: Fuses OK avrdude done. Thank you. wpbook:~ wolf$ avrdude -p m328p -b 115200 -P usb -c avrispmkII -V -U lock:w:0x0F:m avrdude: AVR device initialized and ready to accept instructions Reading | ################################################## | 100% 0.10s avrdude: Device signature = 0x1e950f avrdude: reading input file "0x0F" avrdude: writing lock (1 bytes): Writing | ################################################## | 100% 0.10s avrdude: 1 bytes of lock written avrdude: safemode: Fuses OK avrdude done. Thank you. wpbook:~ wolf$

Arduino IDE

After removing the AVRISP mkII In-System Programmer and changing the power-selector on the Arduino board, it was time to fire-up the Arduino IDE, but not before replacing the board definition file, required to make the IDE recognize the new micorcontroller, (look for the configuration file in the Resources areas below). Now the ATmega328 can be set by selecting Arduino w/ ATmege328 from the Tools/Board menu.
The Fibonacci program was quickly uploaded and running - the IDE reported Binary sketch size: 2020 bytes (of a 30720 byte maximum), which makes sense, considering that we set the efuse to preserve 2K words for the boot loader.


[Arduino IDE after uploading a program]

Fibonacci Program Output for the 1st 39 fibs

fib(0)= 0 fib(1)= 1 fib(2)= 1 fib(3)= 2 fib(4)= 3 fib(5)= 5 fib(6)= 8 fib(7)= 13 fib(8)= 21 fib(9)= 34 fib(10)= 55 fib(11)= 89 fib(12)= 144 fib(13)= 233 fib(14)= 377 fib(15)= 610 fib(16)= 987 fib(17)= 1597 fib(18)= 2584 fib(19)= 4181 fib(20)= 6765 fib(21)= 10946 fib(22)= 17711 fib(23)= 28657 fib(24)= 46368 fib(25)= 75025 fib(26)= 121393 fib(27)= 196418 fib(28)= 317811 fib(29)= 514229 fib(30)= 832040 fib(31)= 1346269 fib(32)= 2178309 fib(33)= 3524578 fib(34)= 5702887 fib(35)= 9227465 fib(36)= 14930352 fib(37)= 24157817 fib(38)= 39088169 fib(39)= 63245986

Resources

• ATmega48P/88P/168P/328P Preliminary Summary (28 pages, revision G, updated 1/09)
• ATmega48P/88P/168P/328P Preliminary (451 pages, revision G, updated 1/09)
• avrdude.conf containing the ATmega328P definition
• Arduino bootloader for the ATmega328P 8-Bit RISC Micro
• boards.txt configuration, needed by the IDE to

[Arduino NG board with the ATmega328P-PU 8-Bit RISC Micro Controller]

This AppleTV has only a 40 GByte Harddrive and with hulu removed from Boxee, I didn't see the need to install any other software components.

Patchstick

The 1st step was to enable ssh on the AppleTV. This used to be very hard and required opening the enclosure. Not anymore! The atvusb-creator projects describes in detail how to put software onto a USB-Flashdrive that when inserted before the AppleTV boots enables ssh. Again, since Boxee, XBMC, or SoftwareMenu weren't necessary, I happily opted-out.
With ssh now enabled, the rest was done in the matter of minutes. And since I had all the required codecs installed on my Macbook already, the remaining tasks were simply to copy the files over to the AppleTV, to put them into the right location, and finally to reboot the device.

Copy

With ssh available, copying files can be done via scp, or Fugu, or Tranmit, the target location should be the home folder of the frontrow user account: frontrow@AppleTV.local:~

• ~/Downloads/ATVFiles-1.2.0.run.sh (available at http://ericiii.net/sa/appletv/ATVFiles-1.2.0.run)
• /Library/Quicktime/Perian.component
• /Library/Quicktime/AC3MovieImport.component
• /Library/Quicktime/Flip4Mac\ WMV\ Import.component .. (optional)
• /Library/Audio/Plug-ins/Components/A52Codec.component
• /System/Library/Quicktime/QuickTimeMPEG2.component .. (optional)

Deploy

Next step was to ssh into the AppleTV and run the ATVFiles installer script and move the components into their final destination:

• sudo sh ~/ATVFiles-1.2.0.run.sh
• sudo mount -uw /
  (sets the file system to read and write)
• sudo mv ~/Perian.component /Library/Quicktime/
• sudo mv ~/AC3MovieImport.component /Library/Quicktime/
• sudo mv ~/Flip4Mac\ WMV\ Import.component /Library/Quicktime/> .. (optional)
• sudo mv ~/A52Codec.component /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/Components/
• sudo mv ~/QuickTimeMPEG2.component /System/Library/QuickTime/ .. (optional)

Reboot

After rebooting the AppleTV via sudo reboot tools like fugu or transmit work well, copying files over to the AppleTV. When watching the AppleTV, there is now a new menu item, Files, which for instance allows browsing of the frontrow user's home directory structure, the location where movies are best copied to.

If you just want to play a movie every now and then that doesn't happen to be a mov or mp4 file, this is a quick and easy way to make it happen.
While Boxee or NitoTV are much more capable, they also seem to make the AppleTV more sluggish.

The Nutella Experiment

Back in the US we almost forgot about the taste difference, until one morning when we once again enjoyed the creamy goodness. But we weren't sure anymore, if the German Nutella really tasted better and therefore decided to find out and do the ultimate taste-test.

Acquisition

Like abovementioned, the Nutella here in the US is actually a product of Canada, and available in many grocery store chains like VONS, Ralphs, or Albertsons; the Store Locator may show some additional stores locations near you.
The North American Nutella sample for out test was purchased at the World Market in Oceanside, which offers the 13 OZ (370 g) plastic jar for US$ 3.99

Finding Nutella, produced in Europe, or to be more precise in Germany, can be a real challenge. Fortunately, Big John, founder and owner of Tip Top Meats - European Delicatessen, Inc. calls Carlsbad his home and his store offers many German and European specialties, among them extraordinary German beers (topic for another blog post, maybe) and Nutella. Slightly more expensive, the 29.1 OZ (825 g) glass jar was to be had for US$ 10.49

Classification

For the untrained shopper it can be quite challenging to see the subtle differences in the packaging. Here are some hints:

• Glass vs. Plastic - a glass jar is a strong hint that you may have found Nutella, originating in Europe.
• Texture on the embossed text on the lid - all lids seem to be white with the Nutella name embossed. However, the German version has a dotted texture on the characters.
• Golden Foil - removing the lid reveals a golden foil, sealing the content. The North American version is blank, the German Nutella has the product name and additional information printed on the foil.

Look, Smell, and Taste

To create fair and equal test conditions, we kept the two jars for one week in a dark location at room temperature. Opening the lids and removing the golden foil was already an eye-opening experience. The German Nutella is a little darker and the surface appear to be less shiny.

The smell is even more telling that there must be a difference. The North-American product doesn't seem to be releasing much scent at all. The German Nutella on the other hand has a noticeable nutty scent.
The widely-known Spoon Test showed that the consistency of the North-American Nutella is a little creamier and softer.

Obviously, taste is subjective, and opinions differ even stronger, when it comes to food. However, all participating Nutella Testers (that would be http://twitter.com/tompaulus and http://twitter.com/wolfpaulus) agreed unanimously that the German Nutella tastes much more intensive, more nutty and chocolaty, when compared with the North-American product. One tester got blind folded and was still able to identified the Nutella's origin in four consecutive tests.
The German Nutella tasted better and not surprisingly, was strongly preferred during the meal following the Taste Test.

Better then Nothing but still a Bad Copy

If a European or German version is unavailable or simply too hard to get then we will certainly continue to buy the Canadian version of the Nutella product. However, I feel sorry for the typical American consumer, who doesn't even know what the real stuff tastes like.
There are many more examples like that. Take for instance the famous Harp Lager, an Irish beer (cousin of Guinness Stout) and widely available here in the US. The label clearly states Imported, a closer look however reveals that imported in this case means imported from Canada, where the beer is brewed and bottled. Again, the taste is different when compared to the real Irish Harp, which can be sampled in some fine Irish pubs here in Southern California.
Seems like food corporations could do a much better job when introducing foreign specialties but instead are sacrificing quality for profit or maybe act just carelessly.
On the other hand, if given a choice, we as consumers shouldn't be rewarding those companies by buying their "tainted" products. Coke for example puts High Fructose Corn Syrup in the Coca-Cola it's selling here in the US. The Coca-Cola bottled in Tijuana, Mexico however, is made with cane sugar. Cron.com had an interesting piece about this here: Have a taste of the real thing - sugar, that is
Just like my grandmother did way back when, we should be spending our money more consciously, going the extra mile, buying products from companies that do the same.

Putting the original (or newer) firmware back on a Fonera FON 2.0

During booting, the FON 2200, waits at IP address 192.168.1.1 on port 9000, for a brief moment, to receive an interrupting Control-C. The process of how to get to the bootloader prompt is described in some detail over here: La Fonera 2.0 (FON 2202) Hacking, Cleaning House

Files

The following 3 files are required during re-flashing and need to be made available to the router via TFTP.

• The 2nd stage loader - alternatively, get it here.
• The failsafe image failsafe.image - alternatively, get it here.
• The Fonera 2.0 image flipper.image - alternatively, get it here.

Also, check here for a more current Fonera 2 image: http://download.fonosfera.org

RedBoot Prompt

Here are steps required to put the three files back on the fonera router. Writing to flash takes some time, especially the last step, in which a 4.4 MBytes are written, requires some patience.


#========================================================
# Reset the current flash and the partition table
#========================================================
RedBoot> fis init
About to initialize [format] FLASH image system - continue (y/n)? y
*** Initialize FLASH Image System
... Erase from 0xa87e0000-0xa87f0000: .
... Program from 0x80ff0000-0x81000000 at 0xa87e0000: .


#========================================================
# Tell RedBoot about the TFTP-Server's IP
#========================================================
RedBoot> ip_address -l 192.168.1.1/24 -h 192.168.1.2
IP: 192.168.1.1/255.255.255.0, Gateway: 0.0.0.0
Default server: 192.168.1.2


#========================================================
# write the 2nd stage bootloader into flash
#========================================================
RedBoot> load -r -b %{FREEMEMLO} loader.bin
Using default protocol (TFTP)
Raw file loaded 0x80040400-0x800503ff, assumed entry at 0x80040400


RedBoot> fis create -e 0x80100000 -r 0x80100000 loader
... Erase from 0xa8030000-0xa8040000: .
... Program from 0x80040400-0x80050400 at 0xa8030000: .
... Erase from 0xa87e0000-0xa87f0000: .
... Program from 0x80ff0000-0x81000000 at 0xa87e0000: .


#========================================================
# load into RAM and write the failsafe image into flash
#========================================================
RedBoot> load -r -b %{FREEMEMLO} failsafe.image
Using default protocol (TFTP)
Raw file loaded 0x80040400-0x801803ff, assumed entry at 0x80040400


RedBoot> fis create -f 0xA8660000 image2
... Erase from 0xa8660000-0xa87a0000: ....................
... Program from 0x80040400-0x80180400 at 0xa8660000: ....................
... Erase from 0xa87e0000-0xa87f0000: .
... Program from 0x80ff0000-0x81000000 at 0xa87e0000: .


#========================================================
# load into RAM and write the image (4+ MB) into flash
#========================================================
RedBoot> load -r -b %{FREEMEMLO} flipper.image
Using default protocol (TFTP)
Raw file loaded 0x80040400-0x804b0403, assumed entry at 0x80040400


RedBoot> fis create image
... Erase from 0xa8040000-0xa84b0004: ........................................................................
... Program from 0x80040400-0x804b0404 at 0xa8040000: ........................................................................
... Erase from 0xa87e0000-0xa87f0000: .
... Program from 0x80ff0000-0x81000000 at 0xa87e0000: .
RedBoot>


When the re-flashing is finally done, all what's left to do to is to reboot the router.

Fonera 2.0 UI

Video Recording

While we used the standard 640x480 video format for the recording below, the VF415 Live! Cam Vid. IM Ultra's native format is Y'CbCr 4:2:2 -yuvy, 1280x960 with Millions of Colors.

Creative LIVE! CAM Video IM Ultra

• Format: H.264 640x480 Millions of Colors, AAC, Mono, 44.100 KHz
• FPS: 30 frames per second
• Data Rate: 1500.24 kbits/s

MacBook built-in iSight Camera

• Format: H.264 640x480 Millions of Colors, AAC, Mono, 44.100 KHz
• FPS: 30 frames per second
• Data Rate: 711.34 kbits/s

Audio Recording

It was a positive surprise, finding out that there is a microphone hidden in the camera's focus ring. However, the microphone is pretty much useless, at least when used under Mac OS X. We used WireTap Studio to create a fair comparison recording, using the MacBook's built-in microphone, the Live Cam Ultra's built-in mic., as well as an external Logitech USB Microphone.

• Creative LIVE! CAM Video IM Ultra built-in Microphone:
  
• Creative LIVE! CAM Video IM Ultra built-in Microphone:
  
• Logitech AK5370 external USB Microphone:,
  

Overall, we really like the IM Ultra, the image quality is crisp and it attaches easily to a laptop's lids as well as a much thicker LCD monitors. However, the audio quality really sucks (at least when used on a Mac and you better have another mic on hand). Moreover, expectedly, the camera doesn't work on a low power USB port.

# ~/.telnetrc
# Fonera 2100 Hacking
192.168.1.254 9000
  mode line
# Fonera 220x Hacking
192.168.1.1
  mode line

The boot process can also be interrupted, using the Fonera's serial port (TTL, 9600, 8N1), accessible only after opening the Fonera's enclosure. The Keyspan USA-19HS USB to Serial Adapter and a RS232 Level Shifter Adapter may be necessary accessories to access the Fonera through the serial port.

RedBoot Prompt

No matter if accessed through ethernet or serial port, entering Control C during the initial phase of the boot process will provide access to the bootloader prompt.

Entering the version command reveals that the bootloader operates in ROMRAM mode, where RedBoot resides in flash memory, but is copied to RAM memory before it starts executing. The RAM footprint is larger than for ROM mode, but it normally runs faster and it is able to update itself, i.e. the flash region where its image resides.

RedBoot> version

RedBoot(tm) bootstrap and debug environment [ROMRAM]
Non-certified release, version v1.3.0 - built 16:57:58, Aug 7 2006

Copyright (C) 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 Red Hat, Inc.

Board: ap51
RAM: 0x80000000-0x81000000, [0x80040450-0x80fe1000] available
FLASH: 0xa8000000 - 0xa87f0000, 128 blocks of 0x00010000 bytes each.
RedBoot>



This output shows that of the Fonera's 16 MB RAM (0x81000000 - 0x80000000 = 0x1000000 = 16,777,216) almost all (0x80fe1000 - 0x80040450 =0xFA0BB0 = 16,386,992) is available. An OS is still stored in the 8 MB Flash (0x7F0000 = 8,323,072) i.e. 64K are occupied.

Board Information

Entering the bdshow command reveals the Atheros Board Data information

RedBoot> bdshow
name: MR3201A-FLF-FON
magic: 35333131
cksum: 5eb3
rev: 5
major: 1
minor: 0
pciid: 0013
wlan0: yes 00:18:84:**:**:**
wlan1: no ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
enet0: yes 00:18:84:**:**:**
enet1: no ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
localbus: no ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
PCI: no ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
uart0: yes
sysled: yes, gpio 2
factory: yes, gpio 6
serclk: external
cpufreq: configured -1 Hz
sysfreq: configured -1 Hz
memcap: disabled
watchdg: enabled
serialNo: 8647******
RedBoot>

Persistent State Flash-based Configuration and Control

Executing the fconfig -l command will list the configuration that is kept in FLASH memory. More details about the fconfig command options can be found here: http://ecos.sourceware.org/docs-latest/redboot/configuring-the-redboot-environment.html.

RedBoot> fconfig -l
Run script at boot: true
Boot script:

Boot script timeout (1000ms resolution): 10
Use BOOTP for network configuration: false
Gateway IP address: 0.0.0.0
Local IP address: 192.168.1.254
Local IP address mask: 255.255.255.0
Default server IP address: 0.0.0.0
Console baud rate: 9600
GDB connection port: 9000
Force console for special debug messages: false
Network debug at boot time: false


Executing the fconfig -i command will interactively change and then persist the configuration. Important configuration information like the Serial Port's communication speed (default is 9600 kbps), the TFTP server's IP Address, or the file name of the Linux Kernel can be changed here.

RedBoot> fconfig -i
Initialize non-volatile configuration - continue (y/n)? y
Run script at boot: true
Boot script:
Enter script, terminate with empty line
>> fis load -l vmlinux.bin.l7
>> exec
>>
Boot script timeout (1000ms resolution): 5
Use BOOTP for network configuration: false
Gateway IP address:
Local IP address: 192.168.1.1
Local IP address mask: 255.255.255.0
Default server IP address: 192.168.1.2
Console baud rate: 9600
GDB connection port: 9000
Force console for special debug messages: false
Network debug at boot time: false
Update RedBoot non-volatile configuration - continue (y/n)? y
... Erase from 0xa87e0000-0xa87f0000: .
... Program from 0x80ff0000-0x81000000 at 0xa87e0000: .


fis load transfers an image from flash memory to RAM. More details about the fis command options can be found here: http://ecos.sourceware.org/docs-latest/redboot/fis-load-command.html.

Flash Image System (FIS)

The Fonera's Flash Image System can be accessed and modified using the fis.

• fis init -- Initialize Flash Image System
• fis list -- List Flash Image System directory
• fis free -- Free flash image
• fis create -- Create flash image
• fis load -- Load flash image
• fis delete -- Delete flash image
• fis lock -- Lock flash area
• fis unlock -- Unlock flash area
• fis erase -- Erase flash area
• fis write -- Write flash area

More details about the fis command options can be found here: http://ecos.sourceware.org/docs-latest/redboot/flash-image-system.html.
Deleting all but the boot blocks is as simple as issuing the fis init command. Here, the fis init command is executed followed by a fis list and a fis free RedBoot> fis init About to initialize [format] FLASH image system - continue (y/n)? y *** Initialize FLASH Image System ... Erase from 0xa87e0000-0xa87f0000: . ... Program from 0x80ff0000-0x81000000 at 0xa87e0000: . RedBoot> load -r -b %{FREEMEMLO} openwrt-atheros-vmlinux.lzma Using default protocol (TFTP) Raw file loaded 0x80040800-0x800f07ff, assumed entry at 0x80040800 RedBoot> fis create -e 0x80041000 -r 0x80041000 vmlinux.bin.l7 ... Erase from 0xa8030000-0xa80e0000: ........... ... Program from 0x80040800-0x800f0800 at 0xa8030000: ........... ... Erase from 0xa87e0000-0xa87f0000: . ... Program from 0x80ff0000-0x81000000 at 0xa87e0000: . RedBoot> fis list Name FLASH addr Mem addr Length Entry point RedBoot 0xA8000000 0xA8000000 0x00030000 0x00000000 vmlinux.bin.l7 0xA8030000 0x80041000 0x000B0000 0x80041000 FIS directory 0xA87E0000 0xA87E0000 0x0000F000 0x00000000 RedBoot config 0xA87EF000 0xA87EF000 0x00001000 0x00000000 RedBoot> fis free 0xA80E0000 .. 0xA87E0000 RedBoot> load -r -b %{FREEMEMLO} openwrt-atheros-root.squashfs Using default protocol (TFTP) Raw file loaded 0x80040800-0x801607ff, assumed entry at 0x80040800 RedBoot> fis create -l 0x700000 rootfs ... Erase from 0xa80e0000-0xa87e0000: ................................................................................................................ ... Program from 0x80040800-0x80160800 at 0xa80e0000: .................. ... Erase from 0xa87e0000-0xa87f0000: . ... Program from 0x80ff0000-0x81000000 at 0xa87e0000: . RedBoot> reset

Running reset shows that the OS has been removed and the Fonera now boots into the bootloader prompt.

RedBoot> reset
+PHY ID is 0022:5521
Ethernet eth0: MAC address 00:18:84:**:**:**
IP: 192.168.1.254/255.255.255.0, Gateway: 0.0.0.0
Default server: 0.0.0.0

RedBoot(tm) bootstrap and debug environment [ROMRAM]
Non-certified release, version v1.3.0 - built 16:57:58, Aug 7 2006

Copyright (C) 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 Red Hat, Inc.

Board: ap51
RAM: 0x80000000-0x81000000, [0x80040450-0x80fe1000] available
FLASH: 0xa8000000 - 0xa87f0000, 128 blocks of 0x00010000 bytes each.
== Executing boot script in 10.000 seconds - enter ^C to abort
RedBoot>


Running telnet 192.168.1.254 9000 will also immediately show the RedBoot prompt now:

wpbook:~ wolf$ telnet 192.168.1.254 9000
Trying 192.168.1.254...
?Invalid command: 9000
Connected to 192.168.1.254.
Escape character is '^]'.
RedBoot>


OpenWrt

Running the fis init command on the Fonera removes the OS and the only software available on the device now is the bootloader, i.e., we now need a new Linux distribution for this embedded device to bring it back to life. OpenWrt is one of the options and freely available via subversion.
  cd ~/Work/Embedded/OpenWrt/branches/8.09.1
  svn co svn://svn.openwrt.org/openwrt/tags/8.09.1 8.09.1

Generally, the following tools need to be pre-installed and if building on OS X, MacPorts and Porticus are recommended to simplify their installation.

• gcc
• binutils
• patch
• bzip2
• flex
• bison
• make
• gettext
• pkg-config
• unzip
• libz-dev
• libc headers
• autoconf
• bison
• ccache
• flex
• gawk
• libncurses-dev.
• svn
• ccache

With OpenWrt Kamikaze 8.09.1 and all the tools downloaded, issuing make menuconfig will bring show the OpenWrt Configuration Menu where the Atheros 231x/5312 [2.6] target needs to be selected. To keep the initial image small, the following unessential tools can be deselected:

• Base System: bridge, firewall, iptables, opkg, uci, uclibc
• Network: ppp

Executing make after saving the configuration, results in deployable kernel image and root file system, both of which can be found here: ~/Work/Embedded/OpenWrt/barnches/8.09.1/bin/. Look for

• openwrt-atheros-vmlinux.lzma - (kernel) about 700 KB
• openwrt-atheros-root.squashfs - (root fs) about 900 KB

The image can be hosted using either an HTTP-Webserver or a TFTP server, like Fabrizio La Rosa's.

Load the Kernel Image

.. back on the device in RedBoot ..

ip_address

More details about ip_address here: http://ecos.sourceware.org/docs-latest/redboot/ip-address-command.html
ip_address sets the IP address of the default server. Use of this address is implied by other commands, such as load.

RedBoot> ip_address -h 192.168.1.2
IP: 192.168.1.254/255.255.255.0, Gateway: 0.0.0.0
Default server: 192.168.1.2
RedBoot>


load

More details about load can be found can be found here: http://ecos.sourceware.org/docs-latest/redboot/download-command.html
load downloads programs or data to the RedBoot platform. By default RedBoot loads images into some free RAM area which can be addressed later using the variable %{FREEMEMLO}.
-r specifies raw (or binary) data, which also implies that -b or -f must be used.
-b address in memory to load the data. Formatted data streams will have an implied load address, which this option may override.
-f address in flash to load the data. Formatted data streams will have an implied load address, which this option may override.

RedBoot> load -r -b %{FREEMEMLO} openwrt-atheros-vmlinux.lzma
Using default protocol (TFTP)
Raw file loaded 0x80040800-0x800f07ff, assumed entry at 0x80040800
RedBoot>


fis create

More details about fis create here: http://ecos.sourceware.org/docs-latest/redboot/fis-create-command.html.
This command creates an image in the FIS directory and obviously, the data for the image must exist in RAM memory before it can be copied. By default, fis create takes the data loaded by the last load command as input for a partition starting at the first free block of the flash space. Important are the values for the RAM address (-r) and entry point (-e), which are linux specific and need to have exactly these values. The partition name 'vmlinux.bin.l7' is configured within RedBoot (see above) as the default boot partition's name and is of course changeable.

RedBoot> fis create -e 0x80041000 -r 0x80041000 vmlinux.bin.l7
... Erase from 0xa8030000-0xa80e0000: ...........
... Program from 0x80040800-0x800f0800 at 0xa8030000: ...........
... Erase from 0xa87e0000-0xa87f0000: .
... Program from 0x80ff0000-0x81000000 at 0xa87e0000: .
RedBoot>


Load the Rootfs Image

Before loading the root filesystem, we issue fis list and fis free once again:

RedBoot> fis list
Name FLASH addr Mem addr Length Entry point
RedBoot 0xA8000000 0xA8000000 0x00030000 0x00000000
vmlinux.bin.l7 0xA8030000 0x80041000 0x000B0000 0x80041000
FIS directory 0xA87E0000 0xA87E0000 0x0000F000 0x00000000
RedBoot config 0xA87EF000 0xA87EF000 0x00001000 0x00000000

RedBoot> fis free
0xA80E0000 .. 0xA87E0000

RedBoot> load -r -b %{FREEMEMLO} openwrt-atheros-root.squashfs
Using default protocol (TFTP)
Raw file loaded 0x80040800-0x801207ff, assumed entry at 0x80040800


The information provided by fis free is now used like this:
0xA87E0000 minus 0xA80E0000 = 0x700000, which is used to create the Root-Filesystem rootfs:

RedBoot> fis create -l 0x700000 rootfs
... Erase from 0xa80e0000-0xa87e0000: ................................................................................................................
... Program from 0x80040800-0x80120800 at 0xa80e0000: ..............
... Erase from 0xa87e0000-0xa87f0000: .
... Program from 0x80ff0000-0x81000000 at 0xa87e0000: .
RedBoot>


Reset

This time, running reset will boot the Fonera into OpenWrt ...
RedBoot> reset

+PHY ID is 0022:5521 Ethernet eth0: MAC address 00:18:84:**:**:** IP: 192.168.1.1/255.255.255.0, Gateway: 0.0.0.0 Default server: 192.168.1.2 RedBoot(tm) bootstrap and debug environment [ROMRAM] Non-certified release, version v1.3.0 - built 16:57:58, Aug 7 2006 Copyright (C) 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 Red Hat, Inc. Board: ap51 RAM: 0x80000000-0x81000000, [0x80040450-0x80fe1000] available FLASH: 0xa8000000 - 0xa87f0000, 128 blocks of 0x00010000 bytes each. == Executing boot script in 5.000 seconds - enter ^C to abort +PHY ID is 0022:5521 Ethernet eth0: MAC address 00:18:84:**:**:** IP: 192.168.1.1/255.255.255.0, Gateway: 0.0.0.0 Default server: 192.168.1.2 RedBoot(tm) bootstrap and debug environment [ROMRAM] Non-certified release, version v1.3.0 - built 16:57:58, Aug 7 2006 Copyright (C) 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 Red Hat, Inc. Board: ap51 RAM: 0x80000000-0x81000000, [0x80040450-0x80fe1000] available FLASH: 0xa8000000 - 0xa87f0000, 128 blocks of 0x00010000 bytes each. == Executing boot script in 5.000 seconds - enter ^C to abort RedBoot> fis load -l vmlinux.bin.l7 Image loaded from 0x80041000-0x8026f086 RedBoot> exec Now booting linux kernel: Base address 0x80030000 Entry 0x80041000 Cmdline : Linux version 2.6.26.5 (wolf@wpbook) (gcc version 4.1.2) #1 Mon Apr 13 21:32:199 CPU revision is: 00019064 (MIPS 4KEc) Determined physical RAM map: memory: 01000000 @ 00000000 (usable) Initrd not found or empty - disabling initrd Zone PFN ranges: Normal 0 -> 4096 Movable zone start PFN for each node early_node_map[1] active PFN ranges 0: 0 -> 4096 Built 1 zonelists in Zone order, mobility grouping off. Total pages: 4064 Kernel command line: console=ttyS0,9600 rootfstype=squashfs,jffs2 init=/etc/pret Primary instruction cache 16kB, VIPT, 4-way, linesize 16 bytes. Primary data cache 16kB, 4-way, VIPT, no aliases, linesize 16 bytes PID hash table entries: 64 (order: 6, 256 bytes) console [ttyS0] enabled Dentry cache hash table entries: 2048 (order: 1, 8192 bytes) Inode-cache hash table entries: 1024 (order: 0, 4096 bytes) Memory: 13640k/16384k available (1814k kernel code, 2744k reserved, 296k data, ) SLUB: Genslabs=6, HWalign=32, Order=0-3, MinObjects=0, CPUs=1, Nodes=1 Mount-cache hash table entries: 512 net_namespace: 484 bytes NET: Registered protocol family 16 Radio config found at offset 0xf8(0x1f8) AR531x PCI init... done PCI: fixing up device 0,3,0 PCI: Failed to allocate mem resource #1:4000000@84000000 for 0000:00:00.0 PCI: Failed to allocate mem resource #1:4000000@84000000 for 0000:00:03.0 NET: Registered protocol family 2 IP route cache hash table entries: 1024 (order: 0, 4096 bytes) TCP established hash table entries: 512 (order: 0, 4096 bytes) TCP bind hash table entries: 512 (order: -1, 2048 bytes) TCP: Hash tables configured (established 512 bind 512) TCP reno registered NET: Registered protocol family 1 ar531x: Registering GPIODEV device squashfs: version 3.0 (2006/03/15) Phillip Lougher Registering mini_fo version $Id$ JFFS2 version 2.2. (NAND) (SUMMARY) ?© 2001-2006 Red Hat, Inc. msgmni has been set to 26 io scheduler noop registered io scheduler deadline registered (default) gpiodev: gpio device registered with major 254 gpiodev: gpio platform device registered with access mask FFFFFFFF Serial: 8250/16550 driver $Revision: 1.90 $ 1 ports, IRQ sharing disabled serial8250: ttyS0 at MMIO 0xb1100003 (irq = 37) is a 16550A eth0: Atheros AR231x: 00:18:84:**:**:**, irq 4 ar2313_eth_mii: probed eth0: attached PHY driver [Generic PHY] (mii_bus:phy_addr=0:00) cmdlinepart partition parsing not available Searching for RedBoot partition table in spiflash at offset 0x7d0000 Searching for RedBoot partition table in spiflash at offset 0x7e0000 6 RedBoot partitions found on MTD device spiflash eth0: Configuring MAC for full duplex Creating 6 MTD partitions on "spiflash": 0x00000000-0x00030000 : "RedBoot" 0x00030000-0x000e0000 : "vmlinux.bin.l7" 0x000e0000-0x007e0000 : "rootfs" mtd: partition "rootfs" set to be root filesystem mtd: partition "rootfs_data" created automatically, ofs=1D0000, len=610000 0x001d0000-0x007e0000 : "rootfs_data" 0x007e0000-0x007ef000 : "FIS directory" 0x007ef000-0x007f0000 : "RedBoot config" 0x007f0000-0x00800000 : "boardconfig" Registered led device: gpio1 Registered led device: wlan Registered led device: gpio3 Registered led device: gpio4 Registered led device: gpio7 TCP vegas registered NET: Registered protocol family 17 802.1Q VLAN Support v1.8 Ben Greear <greearb@candelatech.com> All bugs added by David S. Miller <davem@redhat.com> VFS: Mounted root (squashfs filesystem) readonly. Freeing unused kernel memory: 124k freed Please be patient, while OpenWrt loads ... Algorithmics/MIPS FPU Emulator v1.5 - preinit - Press CTRL-C for failsafe jffs2 not ready yet; using ramdisk mini_fo: using base directory: / mini_fo: using storage directory: /tmp/root - init - Please press Enter to activate this console. wlan: trunk ath_hal: module license 'Proprietary' taints kernel. ath_hal: 2008-10-02 (AR5212, AR5312, RF5111, RF5112, RF2316, RF2317, REGOPS_FUN) ath_rate_minstrel: Minstrel automatic rate control algorithm 1.2 (trunk) ath_rate_minstrel: look around rate set to 10% ath_rate_minstrel: EWMA rolloff level set to 75% ath_rate_minstrel: max segment size in the mrr set to 6000 us wlan: mac acl policy registered ath_ahb: trunk Atheros HAL provided by OpenWrt, DD-WRT and MakSat Technologies wifi0: 11b rates: 1Mbps 2Mbps 5.5Mbps 11Mbps wifi0: 11g rates: 1Mbps 2Mbps 5.5Mbps 11Mbps 6Mbps 9Mbps 12Mbps 18Mbps 24Mbps 3s wifi0: turboG rates: 6Mbps 12Mbps 18Mbps 24Mbps 36Mbps 48Mbps 54Mbps wifi0: H/W encryption support: WEP AES AES_CCM TKIP ath_ahb: wifi0: Atheros 2315 WiSoC: mem=0xb0000000, irq=3 jffs2_scan_eraseblock(): End of filesystem marker found at 0x0 jffs2_build_filesystem(): unlocking the mtd device... done. jffs2_build_filesystem(): erasing all blocks after the end marker... done. mini_fo: using base directory: / mini_fo: using storage directory: /jffs BusyBox v1.11.2 (2009-04-13 21:15:35 PDT) built-in shell (ash) Enter 'help' for a list of built-in commands. _______ ________ __ | |.-----.-----.-----.| | | |.----.| |_ | - || _ | -__| || | | || _|| _| |_______|| __|_____|__|__||________||__| |____| |__| W I R E L E S S F R E E D O M KAMIKAZE (8.09, r15226) ---------------------------- * 10 oz Vodka Shake well with ice and strain * 10 oz Triple sec mixture into 10 shot glasses. * 10 oz lime juice Salute! --------------------------------------------------- root@OpenWrt:/# root@OpenWrt:/# ls bin etc jffs mnt rom sbin tmp var dev home lib proc root sys usr www root@OpenWrt:/# df Filesystem 1k-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on rootfs 960 960 0 100% / /dev/root 960 960 0 100% /rom tmpfs 6884 60 6824 1% /tmp tmpfs 512 0 512 0% /dev mini_fo:/tmp/root 960 960 0 100% /tmp/root /dev/mtdblock3 6208 332 5876 5% /jffs mini_fo:/jffs 960 960 0 100% / root@OpenWrt:/# root@OpenWrt:/# root@OpenWrt:/# free total used free shared buffers Mem: 13764 7980 5784 0 812 Swap: 0 0 0 Total: 13764 7980 5784 root@OpenWrt:/# root@OpenWrt:/# cat /proc/mounts rootfs / rootfs rw 0 0 /dev/root /rom squashfs ro 0 0 proc /proc proc rw 0 0 sysfs /sys sysfs rw 0 0 tmpfs /tmp tmpfs rw,nosuid,nodev,size=6884k 0 0 tmpfs /dev tmpfs rw,size=512k 0 0 devpts /dev/pts devpts rw,mode=600 0 0 mini_fo:/tmp/root /tmp/root mini_fo rw 0 0 /dev/mtdblock3 /jffs jffs2 rw 0 0 mini_fo:/jffs / mini_fo rw 0 0 root@OpenWrt:/#

Fonera Photos

• Fonera 2.0 a/b/c (FON 2100)  
• Fonera 2.0 a/b/c and 2.0 g (FON 2202)  
• Fonera 2.0 n (FON ....)  

The La Fonera 2.0 (FON 2202) developer version comes with ssh enabled but there is also the RedBoot v1.1 boot manager, which is based on the eCos real-time operating system Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL), allows for downloading and execution of embedded applications via serial (X/Y-modem protocol) or Ethernet (TFTP protocol); there are plenty of sites that provide detailed recipes on how to get the Fonera into a state, where its bootloader becomes accessible.
RedBoot makes it easy to replace the currently deployed heavily customized Linux distribution with a more commonly used Linux distribution for wireless devices, like DD-WRT or OpenWrt.

During booting, the FON 2202, waits at IP address 192.168.1.1 on port 9000, for about 2 seconds, to receive an interrupting Control C. Meaning, if a host computer with an assigned IP of something like 192.168.1.2 is connected to the Fonara, issues this command:

echo -e "\0377\0364\0377\0375\0006" >break.bin; sudo nc -vvv 192.168.1.1 9000 < break.bin; telnet 192.168.1.1 9000

and the Fonera gets rebooted, RedBoot will pause the boot process and show the RedBoot> prompt.

Depending on the host's OS, this can also be done, by simply launching telnet 192.168.1.1 9000 and pressing Control C. However, it may be necessary to re-configure telnet a little, for instance by putting this .telnetrc file in the user's home directory.


# ~/.telnetrc
# Fonera 2100 Hacking
192.168.1.254 9000
  mode line
# Fonera 220x Hacking
192.168.1.1
  mode line

The boot process can also be interrupted, using the Fonera's serial port (TTL, 9600, 8N1), accessible only after opening the Fonera's enclosure. The Keyspan USA-19HS USB to Serial Adapter and a RS232 Level Shifter Adapter may be necessary accessories to access the Fonera through the serial port.

RedBoot Prompt

No matter if accessed through ethernet or serial port, entering Control C during the initial phase of the boot process will provide access to the bootloader prompt.

Entering the version command reveals that the bootloader operates in ROMRAM mode, where RedBoot resides in flash memory, but is copied to RAM memory before it starts executing. The RAM footprint is larger than for ROM mode, but it normally runs faster and it is able to update itself, i.e. the flash region where its image resides.

RedBoot> version

RedBoot(tm) bootstrap and debug environment [ROMRAM]
OpenWrt certified release, version 1.1 - built 12:40:38, Sep 3 2007

Copyright (C) 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 Red Hat, Inc.

Board: FON 2202
RAM: 0x8000 0000-0x82000000, [0x80040290-0x80fe1000] available
FLASH: 0xa8000000 - 0xa87f0000, 128 blocks of 0x00010000 bytes each.
RedBoot>



This output shows the Fonera's 32 MB RAM (0x8200 0000 - 0x8000 0000 = 0x200 0000 = 33,554,432) and 8 MB Flash (0x7F0000 = 8,323,072)

Persistent State Flash-based Configuration and Control

Executing the fconfig -l command will list the configuration that is kept in FLASH memory. More details about the fconfig command options can be found here: http://ecos.sourceware.org/docs-latest/redboot/configuring-the-redboot-environment.html.

RedBoot> fconfig -l
Run script at boot: true
Boot script:
.. fis load -l kernel
.. exec

Boot script timeout (1000ms resolution): 2
Use BOOTP for network configuration: false
Gateway IP address: 0.0.0.0
Local IP address: 192.168.1.1
Local IP address mask: 255.255.255.0
Default server IP address: 192.168.1.254
Console baud rate: 9600
GDB connection port: 9000
Force console for special debug messages: false
Network debug at boot time: false
RedBoot>


Executing the fconfig -i command will interactively change and then persist the configuration. Important configuration information like the Serial Port's communication speed (default is 9600 kbps), the TFTP server's IP Address, or the file name of the Linux Kernel can be changed here.

RedBoot> fconfig -i
Initialize non-volatile configuration - continue (y/n)? y
Run script at boot: true
Boot script:
Enter script, terminate with empty line
>> fis load kernel
>> exec
>>
Boot script timeout (1000ms resolution): 5
Use BOOTP for network configuration: false
Gateway IP address:
Local IP address: 192.168.1.50
Local IP address mask: 255.255.255.0
Default server IP address: 192.168.1.2
Console baud rate: 9600
GDB connection port: 9000
Force console for special debug messages: false
Network debug at boot time: false
Update RedBoot non-volatile configuration - continue (y/n)? y
... Erase from 0xa87e0000-0xa87f0000: .
... Program from 0x80ff0000-0x81000000 at 0xa87e0000: .


fis load transfers an image from flash memory to RAM. More details about the fis command options can be found here: http://ecos.sourceware.org/docs-latest/redboot/fis-load-command.html.
http://ecos.sourceware.org/docs-latest/redboot/fis-load-command.html

Flash Image System (FIS)

The Fonera's Flash Image System can be accessed and modified using the fis.

• fis init -- Initialize Flash Image System
• fis list -- List Flash Image System directory
• fis free -- Free flash image
• fis create -- Create flash image
• fis load -- Load flash image
• fis delete -- Delete flash image
• fis lock -- Lock flash area
• fis unlock -- Unlock flash area
• fis erase -- Erase flash area
• fis write -- Write flash area

More details about the fis command options can be found here: http://ecos.sourceware.org/docs-latest/redboot/flash-image-system.html.

fis list

More details about fis list can be found can be found here: http://ecos.sourceware.org/docs-latest/redboot/fis-list-command.html
list lists the images currently available in the FIS.
RedBoot> fis list Name FLASH addr Mem addr Length Entry point RedBoot 0xA8000000 0xA8000000 0x00030000 0x00000000 FIS directory 0xA87E0000 0xA87E0000 0x0000F000 0x00000000 RedBoot config 0xA87EF000 0xA87EF000 0x00001000 0x00000000 RedBoot>

• RedBoot - the bootloader itself, occupying about 192 KByte
• FIS directory - a Partition Table, about 60 KByte, without it, RedBoot wouldn't know what to load and boot.
• RedBoot config - 4 Kbyte, contains the configuration for the bootloader.

Deleting all but the boot blocks is as simple as issuing the fis init command.
Here, the fis init command is executed followed by a fis list and a fis free RedBoot> fis init About to initialize [format] FLASH image system - continue (y/n)? y *** Initialize FLASH Image System ... Erase from 0xa87e0000-0xa87f0000: . ... Program from 0x80ff0000-0x81000000 at 0xa87e0000: . RedBoot> fis list Name FLASH addr Mem addr Length Entry point RedBoot 0xA8000000 0xA8000000 0x00030000 0x00000000 FIS directory 0xA87E0000 0xA87E0000 0x0000F000 0x00000000 RedBoot config 0xA87EF000 0xA87EF000 0x00001000 0x00000000 RedBoot> fis free 0xA8030000 .. 0xA87E0000 RedBoot>

Running reset shows that the OS has been removed and the Fonera now boots into the bootloader prompt. RedBoot> reset ?Ethernet eth0: MAC address 00:18:84:**:**:** IP: 192.168.1.50/255.255.255.0, Gateway: 0.0.0.0 Default server: 192.168.1.2 RedBoot(tm) bootstrap and debug environment [ROMRAM] OpenWrt certified release, version 1.1 - built 12:40:38, Sep 3 2007 Copyright (C) 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 Red Hat, Inc. Board: FON 2202 RAM: 0x80000000-0x82000000, [0x80040290-0x80fe1000] available FLASH: 0xa8000000 - 0xa87f0000, 128 blocks of 0x00010000 bytes each. == Executing boot script in 5.000 seconds - enter ^C to abort RedBoot> fis load loader No image 'loader' found RedBoot> exec Can't execute Linux - invalid entry address RedBoot>

Running telnet 192.168.1.50 9000 will also immediately show the RedBoot prompt now:

wpbook:~ wolf$ telnet 192.168.1.50 9000
Trying 192.168.1.50...
Connected to 192.168.1.50.
Escape character is '^]'.

RedBoot>


OpenWrt

Running the fis init command on the Fonera removes the OS and the only software available on the device now is the bootloader, i.e., we now need a new Linux distribution for this embedded device to bring it back to life. OpenWrt is one of the options and freely available via subversion.
  cd ~/Work/Embedded/OpenWrt/branches/8.09.1
  svn co svn://svn.openwrt.org/openwrt/tags/8.09.1 8.09.1

Generally, the following tools need to be pre-installed and if building on OS X, MacPorts and Porticus are recommended to simplify their installation.

• gcc
• binutils
• patch
• bzip2
• flex
• bison
• make
• gettext
• pkg-config
• unzip
• libz-dev
• libc headers
• autoconf
• bison
• ccache
• flex
• gawk
• libncurses-dev.
• svn
• ccache

With OpenWrt Kamikaze 8.09.1 and all the tools downloaded, issuing make menuconfig will bring show the OpenWrt Configuration Menu where the Atheros 231x/5312 [2.6] target needs to be selected. To keep the initial image small, the following unessential tools can be deselected:

• Base System: bridge, firewall, iptables, opkg, uci, uclibc
• Network: ppp

Executing make after saving the configuration, results in deployable kernel image and root file system, both of which can be found here: ~/Work/Embedded/OpenWrt/barnches/8.09.1/bin/. Look for

• openwrt-atheros-vmlinux.lzma - (kernel) about 700 KB
• openwrt-atheros-root.squashfs - (root fs) about 900 KB

The image can be hosted using either an HTTP-Webserver or a TFTP server, like Fabrizio La Rosa's.

Load the Kernel Image

.. back on the device in RedBoot ..

ip_address

More details about ip_address here: http://ecos.sourceware.org/docs-latest/redboot/ip-address-command.html
ip_address sets the IP address of the default server. Use of this address is implied by other commands, such as load.

RedBoot> ip_address -h 192.168.1.2
IP: 192.168.1.50/255.255.255.0, Gateway: 0.0.0.0
Default server: 192.168.1.2
RedBoot>


load

More details about load can be found can be found here: http://ecos.sourceware.org/docs-latest/redboot/download-command.html
load downloads programs or data to the RedBoot platform. By default RedBoot loads images into some free RAM area which can be addressed later using the variable %{FREEMEMLO}.
-r specifies raw (or binary) data, which also implies that -b or -f must be used.
-b address in memory to load the data. Formatted data streams will have an implied load address, which this option may override.
-f address in flash to load the data. Formatted data streams will have an implied load address, which this option may override.

RedBoot> load -r -b %{FREEMEMLO} openwrt-atheros-vmlinux.lzma
Using default protocol (TFTP)
Raw file loaded 0x80040400-0x801203ff, assumed entry at 0x80040400
RedBoot>


fis create

More details about fis create here: http://ecos.sourceware.org/docs-latest/redboot/fis-create-command.html.
This command creates an image in the FIS directory and obviously, the data for the image must exist in RAM memory before it can be copied. By default, fis create takes the data loaded by the last load command as input for a partition starting at the first free block of the flash space. Important are the values for the RAM address (-r) and entry point (-e), which are linux specific and need to have exactly these values. The partition name 'kernel' is configured within RedBoot (see above) as the default boot partition's name and is of course changeable.

RedBoot> fis create -e 0x80041000 -r 0x80041000 kernel
... Erase from 0xa8030000-0xa8110000: ..............
... Program from 0x80040400-0x80120400 at 0xa8030000: ..............
... Erase from 0xa87e0000-0xa87f0000: .
... Program from 0x80ff0000-0x81000000 at 0xa87e0000: .
RedBoot>


Load the Rootfs Image

Before loading the root filesystem, we issue fis list and fis free once again:

RedBoot> fis list
Name FLASH addr Mem addr Length Entry point
RedBoot 0xA8000000 0xA8000000 0x00030000 0x00000000
kernel 0xA8030000 0x80041000 0x000E0000 0x80041000
FIS directory 0xA87E0000 0xA87E0000 0x0000F000 0x00000000
RedBoot config 0xA87EF000 0xA87EF000 0x00001000 0x00000000

RedBoot> fis free
0xA8110000 .. 0xA87E0000

RedBoot> load -r -b %{FREEMEMLO} openwrt-atheros-root.squashfs
Using default protocol (TFTP)
Raw file loaded 0x80040400-0x801a03ff, assumed entry at 0x80040400


The information provided by fis free is now used like this:
0xA87E0000 minus 0xA8110000 = 0x6D0000, which is used to create the Root-Filesystem rootfs:

RedBoot> fis create -l 0x6D0000 rootfs
... Erase from 0xa8110000-0xa87e0000: ..........................................
... Program from 0x80040400-0x801a0400 at 0xa8110000: ......................
... Erase from 0xa87e0000-0xa87f0000: .
... Program from 0x80ff0000-0x81000000 at 0xa87e0000: .
RedBoot>


Reset

This time, running reset will boot the Fonera into OpenWrt 8.09.1 ...
RedBoot> reset

+Ethernet eth0: MAC address 00:18:84:**:**:** IP: 192.168.1.50/255.255.255.0, Gateway: 0.0.0.0 Default server: 192.168.1.2 RedBoot(tm) bootstrap and debug environment [ROMRAM] OpenWrt certified release, version 1.1 - built 12:40:38, Sep 3 2007 Copyright (C) 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 Red Hat, Inc. Board: FON 2202 RAM: 0x80000000-0x82000000, [0x80040290-0x80fe1000] available FLASH: 0xa8000000 - 0xa87f0000, 128 blocks of 0x00010000 bytes each. == Executing boot script in 5.000 seconds - enter ^C to abort RedBoot> fis load -l kernel Image loaded from 0x80041000-0x80313085 RedBoot> exec Now booting linux kernel: Base address 0x80030000 Entry 0x80041000 Cmdline : Linux version 2.6.26.8 (wolf@wpbook) (gcc version 4.1.2) #2 Sat Jul 25 16:51:53 PDT 2009 CPU revision is: 00019064 (MIPS 4KEc) Determined physical RAM map: memory: 02000000 @ 00000000 (usable) Initrd not found or empty - disabling initrd Zone PFN ranges: Normal 0 -> 8192 Movable zone start PFN for each node early_node_map[1] active PFN ranges 0: 0 -> 8192 Built 1 zonelists in Zone order, mobility grouping on. Total pages: 8128 Kernel command line: console=ttyS0,9600 rootfstype=squashfs,jffs2 init=/etc/preinit ip=192.168.1.50 Primary instruction cache 16kB, VIPT, 4-way, linesize 16 bytes. Primary data cache 16kB, 4-way, VIPT, no aliases, linesize 16 bytes PID hash table entries: 128 (order: 7, 512 bytes) console [ttyS0] enabled Dentry cache hash table entries: 4096 (order: 2, 16384 bytes) Inode-cache hash table entries: 2048 (order: 1, 8192 bytes) Memory: 29176k/32768k available (2369k kernel code, 3592k reserved, 385k data, 136k init, 0k highme) SLUB: Genslabs=6, HWalign=32, Order=0-3, MinObjects=0, CPUs=1, Nodes=1 Mount-cache hash table entries: 512 net_namespace: 484 bytes NET: Registered protocol family 16 Radio config found at offset 0xf8(0x1f8) AR531x PCI init... done PCI: fixing up device 0,3,0 PCI: Failed to allocate mem resource #1:4000000@84000000 for 0000:00:03.0 NET: Registered protocol family 2 IP route cache hash table entries: 1024 (order: 0, 4096 bytes) TCP established hash table entries: 1024 (order: 1, 8192 bytes) TCP bind hash table entries: 1024 (order: 0, 4096 bytes) TCP: Hash tables configured (established 1024 bind 1024) TCP reno registered NET: Registered protocol family 1 ar531x: Registering GPIODEV device squashfs: version 3.0 (2006/03/15) Phillip Lougher Registering mini_fo version $Id$ Installing knfsd (copyright (C) 1996 okir@monad.swb.de). JFFS2 version 2.2. (NAND) (SUMMARY) ?© 2001-2006 Red Hat, Inc. msgmni has been set to 56 io scheduler noop registered io scheduler deadline registered (default) gpiodev: gpio device registered with major 254 gpiodev: gpio platform device registered with access mask FFFFFFFF Serial: 8250/16550 driver $Revision: 1.90 $ 1 ports, IRQ sharing disabled serial8250: ttyS0 at MMIO 0xb1100003 (irq = 37) is a 16550A eth0: Atheros AR231x: 00:18:84:**:**:**, irq 4 ar2313_eth_mii: probed eth0: Marvell 88E6060 PHY driver attached. eth0: attached PHY driver [Marvell 88E6060] (mii_bus:phy_addr=0:1f) cmdlinepart partition parsing not available Searching for RedBoot partition table in spiflash at offset 0x7d0000 Searching for RedBoot partition table in spiflash at offset 0x7e0000 6 RedBoot partitions found on MTD device spiflash Creating 6 MTD partitions on "spiflash": 0x00000000-0x00030000 : "RedBoot" 0x00030000-0x00110000 : "kernel" 0x00110000-0x007e0000 : "rootfs" mtd: partition "rootfs" set to be root filesystem mtd: partition "rootfs_data" created automatically, ofs=250000, len=590000 0x00250000-0x007e0000 : "rootfs_data" 0x007e0000-0x007ef000 : "FIS directory" 0x007ef000-0x007f0000 : "RedBoot config" 0x007f0000-0x00800000 : "boardconfig" Registered led device: gpio1 Registered led device: wlan Registered led device: gpio3 Registered led device: gpio4 Registered led device: gpio7 eth0: Configuring MAC for full duplex TCP vegas registered NET: Registered protocol family 17 RPC: Registered udp transport module. RPC: Registered tcp transport module. 802.1Q VLAN Support v1.8 Ben Greear greearb@candelatech.com All bugs added by David S. Miller davem@redhat.com IP-Config: Guessing netmask 255.255.255.0 IP-Config: Complete: device=eth0, addr=192.168.1.50, mask=255.255.255.0, gw=255.255.255.255, host=192.168.1.50, domain=, nis-domain=(none), bootserver=255.255.255.255, rootserver=255.255.255.255, rootpath= VFS: Mounted root (squashfs filesystem) readonly. Freeing unused kernel memory: 136k freed Please be patient, while OpenWrt loads ... Algorithmics/MIPS FPU Emulator v1.5 - preinit - Press CTRL-C for failsafe switching to jffs2 mini_fo: using base directory: / mini_fo: using storage directory: /jffs - init - Please press Enter to activate this console. PPP generic driver version 2.4.2 device eth0.0 entered promiscuous mode device eth0 entered promiscuous mode br-lan: port 1(eth0.0) entering learning state br-lan: topology change detected, propagating br-lan: port 1(eth0.0) entering forwarding state ip_tables: (C) 2000-2006 Netfilter Core Team nf_conntrack version 0.5.0 (1024 buckets, 4096 max) wlan: trunk ath_hal: module license 'Proprietary' taints kernel. ath_hal: 2009-05-08 (AR5212, AR5312, RF5111, RF5112, RF2316, RF2317, REGOPS_FUNC, TX_DESC_SWAP, XR) ath_rate_minstrel: Minstrel automatic rate control algorithm 1.2 (trunk) ath_rate_minstrel: look around rate set to 10% ath_rate_minstrel: EWMA rolloff level set to 75% ath_rate_minstrel: max segment size in the mrr set to 6000 us wlan: mac acl policy registered ath_ahb: trunk Atheros HAL provided by OpenWrt, DD-WRT and MakSat Technologies wifi0: 11b rates: 1Mbps 2Mbps 5.5Mbps 11Mbps wifi0: 11g rates: 1Mbps 2Mbps 5.5Mbps 11Mbps 6Mbps 9Mbps 12Mbps 18Mbps 24Mbps 36Mbps 48Mbps 54Mbps wifi0: turboG rates: 6Mbps 12Mbps 18Mbps 24Mbps 36Mbps 48Mbps 54Mbps wifi0: H/W encryption support: WEP AES AES_CCM TKIP ath_ahb: wifi0: Atheros 2315 WiSoC: mem=0xb0000000, irq=3

Fonera Photos

• Fonera 2.0 a/b/c (FON 2100)  
• Fonera 2.0 a/b/c and 2.0 g (FON 2202)  
• Fonera 2.0 n (FON ....)  

Connectivity

There are two sockets on the droid, a standard headphone jack, which surprisingly works well with iPhone ear-buts (i.e. on/off switch mutes the mic.) and a mirco-usb data access and charging socket. While I have plenty of mini-USB cables, I didn't have a single micro-usb cable; the one the Motorola has included is short and very inflexible.

Display

The 3.7" WVGA display (480x854 pixels) is impressive but unfortunately Android's UI is not really build for it, at least not yet. The icons (48x48 pixels) appear to be way too small now.

Keyboard

I understand that Motorola put a lot of time and energy in getting the Cliq's keyboard right. Unfortunately, nothing of the teams must not have been talking too each other. The droid's physical keyboard is hardly more useful than its on-screen virtual keyboard and most droid users will not be able to type as fast on the physical keyboards as iPhone users type on the display.

Buttons

The phone has four physical buttons, and four touchscreen buttons just below the display. As one would expect, the physical buttons are the power button which is way too small, tho. A volume rocker, which is on the wrong side (right), and a camera shutter button. The touchscreen buttons the made possible by extending the touchscreen beyond the display and their haptic feedback really rocks.

Camera

The 5MP digital camera is probably the weakest part of the Motorola droid, delivering 5 mega-pixel of noise even when used at best lighting conditions. Some unedited iPhone and Moto Droid shots can be found here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/wolfpaulus/sets/72157604509087860/

Conclusion

The Moto droid is most likely the best Android phone currently available and geeks and developers will love it. However, when compared to the iPhone, the droid lacks basic functionally and user-friendliness we are now so accustomed to. If Google really wants to push Android, it needs to continue to develop the basic applications like mail, calendar, etc. to a point where they are at least as good at what Apple includes with the iPhoneOS. Like it or not, the iPhone OS and the included apps are the baseline now and basic everyday Android applications like Mail and Calendar are plain ugly.

Sounds interesting and a couple of implementation ideas may come to mind. After looking briefly into some xml and binary web service protocols, we will take a closer look at the notification mechanism, provided by Java's management extensions and eventually take a really close look at a full featured implementation of the above mentioned problem.
Interestingly, even when looking at both, the client and the server part of this solution, there isn't really all that much code to write, which means that even in the little time we have, all the concept and patterns used, can be looked at and discussed. Honestly, all the code, (client and server) that makes this 'Stock Quote Client' an event-consumer, instead of a stupid poller, will be shown.

• SoCal Code Camp Los Angeles
• Wolf Paulus: Turning the Web on its head - let's have the server call the client
• Keywords: Tomcat, Push, non-blocking I/O, JMX, Java, Hessian, Comet, AJAX
• November 21 and 22,

This AppleTV has only a 40 GByte Harddrive and with hulu removed from Boxee, I didn't see the need to install any other software components.

Patchstick

The 1st step was to enable ssh on the AppleTV. This used to be very hard and required opening the enclosure. Not anymore! The atvusb-creator project (currently at version 1.0b10) describes in detail how to put software onto a USB-Flashdrive that when inserted before the AppleTV boots enables ssh. Again, since Boxee, XBMC, or SoftwareMenu weren't necessary, I happily opted-out.

1. Download the AppleTV image here: http://mesu.apple.com/data/OS/061-7491.20091107.TVA31/2Z694-6004-003.dmg
2. Download the ATV USB (Patchstick) generator here:http://atvusb-creator.googlecode.com/files/atvusb-creator-1.0.b10.zip
3. Insert a USB Drive, this may not work with all drives and the current data will be overwritten; a Kingston 8GB DataTraveler always works perfectly fine for me.
4. Disable unnecessary tool, before generating the PatchStick, which should take less than 2 minutes.
5. Insert the Patchstick into the AppleTV and reboot (power down and up) the AppleTV
6. Wait until the AppleTV booted, remove the Patchstick, and boot again.

With ssh now enabled, the rest was done in the matter of minutes. And since I had all the required codecs installed on my Macbook already, the remaining tasks were simply to copy the files over to the AppleTV, to put them into the right location, and finally to reboot the device.

Copy

With ssh available, copying files can be done via scp, or Fugu, or Tranmit, the target location should be the home folder of the frontrow user account: frontrow@AppleTV.local:~

• ~/Downloads/ATVFiles-1.3.0b1.run.sh (available at http://ericiii.net/sa/appletv/ATVFiles-1.3.0b1.run)
• /Library/Quicktime/Perian.component
• /Library/Quicktime/AC3MovieImport.component
• /Library/Quicktime/Flip4Mac\ WMV\ Import.component .. (optional)
• /Library/Audio/Plug-ins/Components/A52Codec.component
• /System/Library/Quicktime/QuickTimeMPEG2.component .. (optional)
• .. or just copy everything from your Mac's /Library/Quicktime/ folder over to the ATV's

Deploy

Next step was to ssh into the AppleTV and run the ATVFiles installer script and move the components into their final destination:

• sudo sh ~/ATVFiles-1.3.0b1.run
• sudo mount -uw /
  (sets the file system to read and write)
• sudo mv ~/Perian.component /Library/Quicktime/
• sudo mv ~/AC3MovieImport.component /Library/Quicktime/
• sudo mv ~/Flip4Mac\ WMV\ Import.component /Library/Quicktime/> .. (optional)
• sudo mv ~/A52Codec.component /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/Components/
• sudo mv ~/QuickTimeMPEG2.component /System/Library/QuickTime/ .. (optional)

Reboot

After rebooting the AppleTV via sudo reboot tools like fugu or transmit work well, copying files over to the AppleTV. When watching the AppleTV, there is now a new menu item, Files, which for instance allows browsing of the frontrow user's home directory structure, the location where movies are best copied to.

If you just want to play a movie every now and then that doesn't happen to be a mov or mp4 file, this is a quick and easy way to make it happen.
While Boxee or NitoTV are much more capable, they also seem to make the AppleTV more sluggish.

Making ebook purchases is obviously a walk in the park. After setting up an account at B&N's web site, registering the nook is straight forward and only requires the email address registered with the account. Two clicks later and the first ebook was purchased and downloaded onto the device.

However, not all ebook need to be purchased through Barnes & Noble. For instance, I recently bought 'Unlocking Android' at Amazon. The book comes with a free PDF version, which can be copied over to the nook, using the included USB to Mirco-USB cable, which is also needed to charge the device. Anyway, after coping the 10MB PDF document over (happened very swiftly), the document was readable after only a brief moment, required to format the PDF to the nook's screen size.