Hacking Express gate (Asus Splashtop)

[wiesshund]

Interesting finding
got splashtop to spit out its convulted model name from my MB
some reason the chopped a letter off it

echo $DVM_MODEL reports M4A79XT_EVO
close enough i suppose though model number is really M479XTD_EVO

No idea what sqx files actualy contains models.d but i can view it inside splashtop in the terminal.

So i have tried my va-customres.sqx both using the board specific folder in it as well as the universal superset folder in it.

Odd thing happens, it's ignored as far as i can tell,
splashtop mounts it in /mnt/va-customres.sqx but that is about all it appears to do.
And simply mounting it is not highly useful, it doesnt actualy execute any of the files in it.

if i look at the two environment variables that should have been set by 99-custom
the values in them (in active memory) are 1024x767x40x60
and DDC=no

Incidently i found while messing with this that i can infact read and write to all my hard drives, XP, Win7, and Ubuntu.
They are all mounted in /mnt/winhdd/ (disk1, disk2, disk3 etc)
No splash apps seem to be able to navagate to anyplace beyond the USB drive, but i would guess that is the programmer just locking down the normal "look for a place to save" function
Perhaps if you changed one to be mounted in media instead, perhaps you could use it.
Havent tried yet, will try a symbolic link and see later.

At least you can go into terminal and move files or write them.
Or simply put an unsquashed script on the drive to execute for various reasons.

I tried using your little script (SPARTAN's) to change the environment variables for the resolutions.
But saddly they only exist up to the point where the python script says its now going to reload your desktop, then it seems splashtop purges memory.

It must actualy save to a file in c:\ASUS.SYS or c:\ASUS.000 to save some of the persistant settings.
so mayhaps something there is editable.

Also unsure which version of splashtop you have but the version i have here is using X, it is using the Xvesa server, not sure which WMM this thing is, i see one in the filesystem named blackbox.
Did try to run it, hehehe, of course it said display :0.0 was busy with another WMM.

So for now ive got crappy res but i do have a terminal app, pidgin, and Firefox 2.0 (3.0 fails to launch for whatever reason)
BitchX didnt work, yet.

[wiesshund]

Hey man, i have a simple HDD access for splashtop.
It is limited but for the tinyX os, limited is perfect.

Ok using your terminal app, go and do this command

CD /mnt/winhdd
ls

Ok depending on how many drives/partitions you have, you will see dik1 disk2 and so on.
For most people disk1 is windows c:\
If not for you just CD to each disk till you find the right one.

Ok for most people the most practical thing to use is c:\documents and settings\username.windowsID\my documents

So for this example in *nix speak
/mnt/winhdd/disk1/Documents\ and\ Settings/John.JOHN-PC/My\ Documents/

Ok so now we found that.

so issue this command

ln -s /mnt/winhdd/disk1/Documents\ and\ Settings/John.JOHN-PC/My\ Documents/ /media/storage

Ok now go to any splashtop app, and try to open or save a file
You should now show a new directory to use in media
And you can write to and read from your HDD

To make this permanant (as is possible) just need to figure out what squash file contains your startup scripts and add that to them

[wiesshund]

So for this example in *nix speak
/mnt/winhdd/disk1/Documents\ and\ Settings/John.JOHN-PC/My\ Documents/

ln -s /mnt/winhdd/disk1/Documents\ and\ Settings/John.JOHN-PC/My\ Documents/ /media/storage

Cant edit above post, but change the linux type path so the command reads
ln -s "/mnt/winhdd/disk1/Documents and Settings/John.JOHN-PC/My Documents" /media/storage

The quotes is better or the link just winds up linking c:\ entirely

EDIT
bracketed path in "" "" because its easier to make work than *nix type paths of /blah/My\ Documents\ and\ Stupid\ Stuff/
which will wind up linking /blah instead.
Admin feel free to consolidate posts

[wiesshund]

well...
so far, a good day.
Ive got the following apps into spashtop

Firefox 2.0 (3.0 no go still)
BitchX
Songbird music player
Xterm
Pico text editor (stole it out of ubuntu)

Resolution switching is so far a no go, and i have a suspicion that ASUS did this particular expressgate's Xvesa driver without any other capabilities res wise.
I asked it to report in the console, and it did not list having any other resolutions.

So i am guessing the trick may be to find which other MB packages may have a different set of files
pertaining to resolutions etc?
Not at all sure what would be entailed in attempting to stuff in an actual hardware Xserver

Now to find out where expressgate has the dumb default Browser icon stored, and remove it.

I am thinking for now a small video player is out of the question with only generic Xvesa support and bare minimal libraries in general, unless i can find a totaly self sufficient software based one.

Ok done hogging the thread for now, if anyone would like Songbird give me a yell, its squashed and ready to run.

[SPARTAN]

Hey Weisshund,
Sounds like you're having a lot more luck than I am regarding getting Apps to work. I guess having a HDD install makes it easier (SSD requires you to flash it continuously). That may also be where the problems you are having with setting the Res come in.

Anyway, regarding getting a script to execute on startup, just put it in the init script for a va-*.sqx file.

Would you mind sending me that Songbird sqx? e-mail: [email protected]
I'll pop it onto my website as part of the tutorial, would be nice to have a list of precompiled applications there. Maybe also the Pico text editor?

AFAIR the icons for the web browser (and the other apps) are inside the va-thm*.sqx files.

Also, what version of SplashTop are you running? I'm on 1.4.10.8 (the latest SSD version AFAIK).

[SPARTAN]

Okay, strange thing here. I am running the SSD version (as you know) and I went to check whether my Windows HDDs appear in SplashTop under /mnt/winhdd
Seems that they don't; now whether this is a function of me having my HDDs set to AHCI mode I'm not sure yet but kinda a bummer. Would be awesome to have access to all my music in SplashTop even if it does defeat the point of having an aftermarket soundcard...

Also, just double checked the resolution thing. Looks like exporting those variables in a va-*.sqx file doesn't work but all seems to work perfectly from the console... (Might have misstyped something so gonna try again just now, will get back to you)

[wiesshund]

Okay, strange thing here. I am running the SSD version (as you know) and I went to check whether my Windows HDDs appear in SplashTop under /mnt/winhdd
Seems that they don't; now whether this is a function of me having my HDDs set to AHCI mode I'm not sure yet but kinda a bummer. Would be awesome to have access to all my music in SplashTop even if it does defeat the point of having an aftermarket soundcard...

My HDDs are in AHCI mode as well, linux far as i could ever tell, doesnt give a hoot about that.
Whether it uses it or ignores it i do not know.

Possibly since you technicaly have 0 use for the HDD, they simply didnt bother to mount them, i will look through my files and see if this distro has an fstab or similar mounting file, and paste you back the contents.
Of course you will probably have already hand mounted the drives by them hehe.

Also, just double checked the resolution thing. Looks like exporting those variables in a va-*.sqx file doesn't work but all seems to work perfectly from the console... (Might have misstyped something so gonna try again just now, will get back to you)

[/quote]
They work for me from the console, but only to a point.
the resolutions appear in the python app after typing in the console commands.
But after choosing a res (any res, even 800x600) upon the restart of X
it returns to the default res and the exported values are gone from memory returned to stock.

I am going to put the apps i have working up for download today and will post link here a little later.

So far i have...

BitchX-
launches inside its own term window, does require to run in dumb mode
and does not allow the use of /window functions, due to the limited X environment.
But does provide perfect basic IRC funtionality.
Term closes on BitchX exit.

Firefox 3.0.19-
This includes flash 10.x pre patched into it.
this is the highest version my splashtop has the capability of supporting.
Greasemonkey can actualy be installed while runnign in splashtop.
It is not saved on reboot but takes approx 5 seconds to install it again.
I decided not to load in alot of plugins and increase file size.
I have tested loading plugins per log in and they work fine, they just are lost on full reboot.

Pico-
Pico is actualy e3 text editor emulating Pico.
Pico has no open public license so....
It works flawless and requires no extra libraries and it is very small in size.
Simply run it from xterm by typing pico

Songbird-
Music player, works flawless nearly.
Obviously it cant save some things because it is running in a volatile file system, such as remembering your music library.
Aside from that it works just as intended and expected.

Xterm-
I realize xterm already existed but if you try to launch bitchX in it
you realize that suddenly you cant read white text in a white terminal.
So this is an old school white text on black screen setup.
It also works well with some other older console apps that just assume the screen would be black

AR (archiver)-
This tool is handy when you have to work from .DEB packages, as splashtop has no tools besides tar for unpacking things.
AR will let you extract the DEB package to get the tarball your app is in.
This is mainly useful if you want to look around for other apps that might work.
You can actualy unpack them and test them all inside splashtop prior to trying to pack them up in squash.
Being able to test inside splashtop before hand is very useful as many apps will require libraries and stuff that splashtop just isnt highly capable of providing, since it uses alot of older stuff.

Ive some scripts, but as they are semi system, or installation_type specific, they wont be highly useful in sqx

Will post up download info later today
Will be normal open ftp, no rapid share click this pop up that crud.

[wiesshund]

ok im sending stuff up online now
it will be located at http://wiesshund.net16.net/splashtop
you will be able to grab it via ftp or http either one.

[wiesshund]

Something you can play with SPARTAN
Songbird actualy supprts vide0, but of course splashtop has no codecs for playback

http://news.softpedia.com/news/How-to-Install-Multimedia-Codecs-in-Linux-39555.shtml

you could tinker round and see if it can make use of those?
trouble comes when you start getting your flash image too large of course.
HDD install can make one a bit lazy in the area of space consciousness.

Im going to try something later.
To regain space (for SDD installs as opposed to HDD) im going to see if
i can remove some stock things, such as the crippled firefox splashtop comes with.
Either remove, or replace it with the firefox 3.0.x that i am using currently.

I did find that some laptop expressgates have an AV player.
They used Mplayer, but i havent tried to build it yet.
Not sure which source pkg would most closely suit splashtop
It appears to use its own video codecs?
Of course if anyone else reading this has an mplayer sqx file and wants to share it..........

Also want to see if i can default the file manager app to appear on the task bar instead of hiding until a USB source it seen.

I hope you are able to mount your HDD's it makes testing apps easier when you dont have to package and flash them.

can you show me an example of a proper vactl to execute something on the order of
ln -s "/mnt/winhdd/disk1/my stuff/My Music/ /media/My Music"

I must be doing something wrong with mine, it doesnt make the links at boot, but atleast i have the script added (va-storage.sqx if you want to see it) and can manualy run it from terminal.

Ive an odd question since i dont hve onboard SDD
can you see your onboard SDD at all?
Can you chose it in the bios to boot from? mount it or view it in any OS?

[SPARTAN]

Definetly will take a look and see if I can do that, also I have been doing a bit of testing with High Res. It seems like it only starts lagging with Firefox open (probably due to them crippling it) so I will try with your FF and see if it works better.

I will let you know just now if it works, I just compiled a version without Skype and a whole bunch of the FF crippling stuff

I did hear that, haven't tried yet.

I'm sure thats under the config files for it, shouldn't be difficult to modify (been trying to get it to detect non-USB devices)

I'm sure it would, otherwise I can always use a memory stick which it does recognise

Okay, I haven't tested this but it should work.

#! /bin/sh
 
case "$1" in
init|mount)
echo "Mounting HDDs..."
ln -s "/mnt/winhdd/disk1/my stuff/My Music/" "/media/My Music"
;;
start)
echo "Created by Sierra Softworks"
;;
esac

I'm pretty sure you can execute scripts from vactl (Just make sure its in the right section; not sure which that is tho :P) Otherwise just create a shortcut on the desktop (start bar) to mount your HDDs.

I can from within SplashTop, however I can't within windows without using the dvmIo.dll code calls (which I don't have the header files for). That is the same code that the ExpressGate updater uses and it mounts the SSD quickly, checks the stuff and then dismounts it. I wish I could get hold of the function declarations, would write an app to allow us to browse the SSDs from within Windows.
I can't choose it in the BIOS, and I can't mount/view it without calling the functions in dvmIo.dll, so as someone said earlier in the topic there must be a specific call to the motherboard that enables/disables it.