Well, since I have a machine at my disposal that can compile an empeg kernel in under two mins, I figure I'll ask if anyone has any particular requests on what they want in the kernel. Just reply here, along with a link to the necessary patch and info if it's a Mark 1 or 2.

Kit's clock overlay patch patch would be nice.

I hate having to explain why there is no clock on this expensive toy.

Thanks!
-Chuck

This kernel has Voladj, the IR code from Frank to work with DisplayServer and custom remotes, and the clock overlay.

This kernel has Voladj, the IR code from Frank to work with DisplayServer and custom remotes, and the clock overlay.

Ok, attachment didn't work (nor did the edit, is that a problem in this fourm?), let me upload it here... There we go http://www.perilith.com/~drakino/blogger/zImage.voladj.clock.irhack.1.03.zip

Also, voladj.zip is attached. It's the binary for the people who select different settings for voladj.

And here is one that only has the clock overlay and the irhack.

http://www.perilith.com/~drakino/blogger/zImage.clock.irhack.1.03.zip

Thanks Drakino :)

Technoweenie
12 GB Blue / Red MK2

Seconded!

Bryan.

Mark 2 #080000515
12GB Green (was Blue)
...and it's full!

I hate having to explain why there is no clock on this expensive toy.

There's no coffee maker or pencil sharpener either.

Rob

But there will be in v1.1.

Oh. Actually there won't.


Roger - not necessarily speaking for empeg

But there will be in v1.1.

Oh. Actually there won't.

Between you and me, Roger, I'm just glad he didn't reveal any details of the caffeine-powered pencil sharpener project we've been working on for the past six months.

Peter

I'm still waiting for the "Mr Fusion" add-on too.....

Technoweenie
12 GB Blue / Red MK2

Well here I am with the new kernel and no clock display, help....

Technoweenie
12 GB Blue / Red MK2

You need one of the kernels above, and you also need to install the timed program, per the instructions here. Everytime you upgrade, it will wipe out at least your custom init that starts things like the clock and DisplayServer.

Thanks for your promt assistance Drakino, all this during my lunch hour ha ha. I have downloaded the instuction zip and will give it a go later this aft...I already have your kernel installed on my player so it should (hopefully) be easy...
John

Technoweenie
12 GB Blue / Red MK2

I appreciate all the work you guys did but after seeing the extra stuff involved to set this up, no thanks. I don't have the skills or time to attemp this for a clock on the info screen though it would've been nice...I'll wait until v1.1 Thanks anyways - J

Technoweenie
12 GB Blue / Red MK2

Rob

I plead to you, Never put a clock on the empeg! Next thing you know the Timex junkies will be strapping their Empegs to all sorts of things oscillating. Just to see if it can take a licking and keep on ticking.

But seriously, I've got one of those billion plus VCR's that is eternally set to 12:00. Not because I don't know how, but because the setting procedure is such a pain in the a--.

But seriously, I've got one of those billion plus VCR's that is eternally set to 12:00. Not because I don't know how, but because the setting procedure is such a pain in the a--.

On the empeg right now it is very simple. Down, Left, Left, Down, Down, twist knob for hours, Left, twist knob for minutes, press in knob.

Same thing for the date basically.

One think I am hoping 1.1 has as an option is to sync your PC's time to your empeg. That will make it even easier.

Personally, I want some sort of clock on the screen since the Mark 2 has a real time clock. Since my old radio had one in the dash, I got used to it, and even though I wear a watch, I was still looking to the dash first. (Just like how I look to the corner of my screen now). Luckily Kit came up with a nice hack to get a clock on screen, so those of us who wanted this functionality have it now, without being beta testers for empeg. And having a real time clock also introduces all kinds of other possibilities. I'm hoping one day that if I work an 8-5 shift and have to worry about traffic, my empeg will wake up in the morning and record the traffic report for playback once I get in the car.

is the empeg as reliable as my computer at telling the time if it is i will be fitting a sun dial to my car. As my computer is absolutely crap.

is the empeg as reliable as my computer

I've noticed mine got ahead a few seconds over the past 3 weeks or so. Not too bad for a device like this. Plus much cheaper then an atomic clock. Besides, those atomic clocks loose a second every 5 billion years and they can't play music .

no but you could bang out a nice tune on its lid

This kernel has Voladj, the IR code from Frank to work with DisplayServer and custom remotes, and the clock overlay.

You left out the pencil sharpener and the coffee maker.




(PS: My standard kernel is Voladj+Irhack-for-displayserver, got one of those on the shelf?)

(PPS: Is this 1.03-final sources you're working from?)

___________
Tony Fabris

For some reason empeg_coffee.h was missing, so the .c file didn't compile right. I just decided to rip it out for now, since my personal preference is other types of hot drinks.

If you really want just an Voladj and IRHack, I can do that, but the clock overlay code does nothing unless you install the binary Kit made. It defaults to off for the overlay on boot, and simply waits for the IOCTL to tell it to overlay and display text.

And yes, I am using the final 1.03 kernel code. (The last patch I applied was RC1, that turned into final).

Hmm, the web link to perilith.com isn't working for me. Note that the reason your attachments didn't work is probably because they're over 100k...

___________
Tony Fabris

Oh, just realised perilith.com is not resolving. It's a friends domain, let me see what other domains on that machine work.

(And Tony, that was your 4000th post.)

http://empeg.miniinfo.net/~drakino/blogger/zImage.clock.irhack.1.03.zip
and
http://empeg.miniinfo.net/~drakino/blogger/zImage.voladj.clock.irhack.1.03.zip

On the empeg right now it is very simple. Down, Left, Left, Down, Down, twist knob for hours, Left, twist knob for minutes, press in knob.

I have more respect for VCR clock designers now. Not much, but more.

--Glenn

PS "Do you really twist Rob's knob for hours?"

I have more respect for VCR clock designers now. Not much, but more.

Well, it's much easier to do it while looking at the empeg. Down to bring up the menu like normal, left twice to get to settings, down to select it, then down again to select "Set Time".

PS "Do you really twist Rob's knob for hours?"

Usually only when Rob's knob slips due to the shaft being too warm

The clock/vol/irhack version seems to be working great for me now.

Is there a chance you could set up a specific page for hosting those files? I'd like to link it in the readme for my updated picker/voladj file.

___________
Tony Fabris

It would be cool if we could have a page somewhere that collects all this kind of thing together. Something easy to find and being just as Rio car related as empeg related so that everyone that will soon be joining us in the world of empeging can get all the cool toys like logo editor, displayserver, custom kernals etc.

i would volunter but my web page writing skills suck big style but i might try and learn.

I'll look into setting up an area off the empeg logo site. This may take me a bit of time, as I am moving this weekend. But at the latest it should be there by the end of next week.

That almost sounds like the idea behind the developer site doesn't it ....

Just an idea - the site is still there!!

(list 6284, Mk1 S/N 00299 4GB blue [for sale]. Mk2 S/N 080000094 6GB blue)

Probably a stupid error on my part, but I installed v1.03 Developer fresh, then used the upload.exe utility to upload this kernel to my empeg. The irhack stuff doesn't seem to work.

I remember when I used my own patch of 1.02 and the irhack kernel, when I cat'd the ircode file to /dev/ir, I got some output... with this, this is all I get.:

empeg:/sbin# cat /etc/empeg_ircodes > /dev/ir
empeg:/sbin#

and nothing happens (remote doesn't work). Actually neither of the remotes work.

Any ideas? (Are these consumer patches?)

(O|||||O)

the ir-patch now expects translation table catted to /proc/empeg_ir.
writing to /dev/ir is only used for fake ir-codes

Frank van Gestel

Frank,

Ahh, ok that was the problem. Also, I'm not sure if its just me, but using that example init.ir_hack file, when it tries to mount /proc, it gives me an error saying "can't create /tmp/some file, read-only fs"..

To workaround, I had to mount -n /proc, then cat the ircodes to /proc/empeg_ir, then umount /proc (as if I left proc mounted, the player init would dump right to a shell prompt).

Later,

(O|||||O)

Here is one with the 1 drive hack, Voladj, the oevrlay for the clock, and irhack for Displayserver, Mark 2.

http://www.perilith.com/~drakino/blogger/zImage.clock.irhack.voladj.1drive.zip

So, Drakino, when are you going to put up that "Kernel Repository" site you mentioned before? We'd really love to see it implemented. When 1.1 comes out, we'll need it even more. Please?

Hey, everyone, help me needle him about it.

___________
Tony Fabris

About 5 seconds ago

The empeg logo site now is home to my kernels compiled in this thread. One day, I'll get around to getting a similar uploader system in place for custom kernels. (Before or after 1.1 is beyond me, since it depends on how quickly Tony does his job on beta testing, and how slow my nights are at work )

in order to apply this do i just use tonys up loader ? and does it just work ?
sorry for what may be a dumb question

andrew butler
sn 08000176 6G amber

Edited by buts on 17/07/01 10:43 AM.

Great!

Thanks

Dragi "Bonzi" Raos
Zagreb, Croatia
Q#5196, MkII#80000376, 18GB green

Yeah, that's right. Remember to unzip the file first.

___________
Tony Fabris

Cool. Thanks!

___________
Tony Fabris

i have unziped the file and loaded ok , do i just point a browser at it for display server? if so it does no seen to work.

ps i can see the unit with emplode vi ip

andrew butler
sn 08000176 6G amber

Displayserver isn't in the Kernel.

Displayserver is a separate program that you must install to the Empeg's hard disk, more or less "by hand".

The "displayserver" kernel hack, also known as "irhack", happens to contain a section that allows one of the features of displayserver to work. But it's not displayserver.

You need to get Displayserver from Frank Van Gestel and install it. I'm not going to be able to give you step-by-step instructions for installing Displayserver, but you might be able to glean some hints from this file:

http://www.jps.net/tfabris/empeg/Picker_and_Voladj_for_Dummies.zip

Good luck.

___________
Tony Fabris

thanks tony all up and working


andrew butler
sn 08000176 6G amber

I know that this is way more work than you probably want to do for kernel hacks, but it would be WAY cool if you had a website where we could select which base kernel, and what hacks we want, then your machine would compile the hacked kernel together and provide a file for download.

I would assume that users would have to create accounts for themselves, so that haxors don't just bombard your machine with compile requests.

Thanks for providing these compiled hacks, BTW!

-Hoagy.

I've thought of that, but it's probably more work than you could imagine. The various hacks aren't necessarily "plug and play", and might require some hand code-tweaking to integrate properly.

Besides, you'd have to wait for the compile to get done before you could download the file. All things considered, it's easier for someone to simply post the most popular configurations pre-compiled.

___________
Tony Fabris

I was actually thinking of doing this a while back. If I ever get a huge chunk of free time, I might consider trying this. Overall, it would be possible as long as the patches submitted did work properly. I figure I would have a database holding what particular kernels had been compiled already to avoid duplicate work. Drive space is the biggest concern though, as there would need to be room to expand the kernel and such. The site that hosts the logo page only has 400 megs free, and others do use that machine.

But with the few amount of kernel mods out there, I figure using the server here is easy enough for now. I am going to sit down and compile a few more, and probably run through and generate Mark 1 images as well.

I currently have:
The Voladj code
Overlay code for the clock
1 drive code
IRhack code

What other kernel hacks are out there that people are interested in?

Mark 1 images generated and up on the site.

Hi Drakino.

Could you put a kernel (mk2 in my case) with the following hacks in up on your page?
Display overlay for Kit's clock, the irhack for Displayserver and custom remotes, and the single drive boot speed enhancement
I really don't want to use voladj, and AFAIK voladj is active by default, right?

cu,
sven
proud MkII owner (12GB blue now green, #080000113)

Yes, voladj is active by default. I'll compile a one drive kernel with the irhack and overlay for you tomorrow.

Hello...

>I currently have:
>The Voladj code
>Overlay code for the clock
>1 drive code

1 Drive Code ? What is this patch for ? Never read about this
before ?

Regards

Janosch

It eliminates some waiting around trying to detect an eventual second hard drive - ie makes it boot faster.
Should of course only be used if you only have one hard drive!

/Michael

Hi.

I don't know the post were this was first mentioned, but the single drive patch just makes the kernel skip checking for a second harddisc. This saves some seconds on bootup if you only have one disc.

try this link for the original post (just did a search for it).

cu,
sven
proud MkII owner (12GB blue now green, #080000113)

I have the non voladk 1 drive kernels up now, and also something that should help people out. I have a bzipped 1.03 kernel down at the bottom, so no more needing to patch so many times when working with the kernel.

I have a bzipped 1.03 kernel down at the bottom, so no more needing to patch so many times when working with the kernel.

Some filesystem corruption seems to have crept into this archive resulting in a 73 meg COPYING file... In any case, the original kernel tarball that Empeg published had some leftovers from a i386 compilation run which inflated it unnecessarily. I did some cleaning up, the fully patched 1.03 version is 13 megs. I've put it up on sourceforge, feel free to copy it or link to it.

Argh, their webserver seems to claim it's text/plain, so take care when downloading from Windows systems.

Regards,
Borislav

Hmm, was that 73 meg file only in mine, or the one from empeg origionally? Hmm, checking empeg.com, and the origional being 19 megs GZipped, I guess something strange happened with it. I'll go ahead and copy that one from sourceforge in place of mine later today. I specificially set the bz2 mime type up on the logo server to avoid it being treated as text/plain

Hi Borislav.

I just can't get that file from bkernel.sf.net Could you mail it to me? Or upload it to an ftp site if I give you the right login? I would than provide that file on my homepage (www.incase.de, new version almost finished, will be uploaded by the beginning of next week) and post a link here.

cu,
sven
proud MkII owner (12GB blue now green, #080000113)

I have that file mirrored on my site now. I was gettign weird DNS resolution with sf.net for some reason.

I now also mirror that archive under http://www.incase.de/empeg/empegkernel1.03.tar.bz2. Check http://www.incase.de/empeg/ if you get error 404 (which might happen when I update my site next week). you will surely find an appropriate link there.

cu,
sven
proud MkII owner (12GB blue now green, #080000113)

I specificially set the bz2 mime type up on the logo server to avoid it being treated as text/plain

I've now set the mime type correctly too, I had to find out how I can do that on a per directory basis with apache (which is what Sourceforge runs). Thanks to everybody who mirrored the file.

Borislav

I was gettign weird DNS resolution with sf.net for some reason.

They just send an email saying they had some DNS problems with it last night. Should be fixed now.

Borislav

Okay. So once again I seem to be having problems with the simplest of tasks. I have been putting off tyring to add extra functionality to my empeg for fear of doing some irrepairable damage but tonight I thought I'd give voladj and the 1 drive hack a go. So, I downloaded the following file from Drakino's link

zImage.clock.irhack.voladj.1drive.mk2.zip

and unzippped it to: zImage.clock.irhack.voladj.1drive.mk2

Had a search around to find out how to get it to my empeg and found Tony's Logo Editor. Downloaded that and have followed the instructions in the FAQ but nothing seems to happen. I go to [File] [Kernel Flash Utility] and choose zImage.clock.irhack.voladj.1drive.mk2 off the list (yes, definitely not the zip file) click open and then get a DOS screen telling me I need to unplug and plug my empeg which I've done. Nothing. Do I need to rename this file or is there something I'm missing? I know that the serial cable works as I can connect using Hyperterminal. I have a Mk2 player on 1.03 and that is what I have downloaded.

_______________________

Steve - 18GB Mk II Blue

I would like to try to get my WinCE PDA to serial in via IRDA. Could someone with kernel building experience put the necessary module(s) into any of the Mk 1 kernels?
What else would I need to make the empeg connect to my PDA's terminal emulator?
Thanks,
Jason

_~= Dearing =~_
"WAY too happy about having #99."

I note that you warn people on the kernel site that using the kernels may cause the player to spontaneously sprout purple hairs. So is this a step up from causing demons to fly out of its nose (which is more traditional)?

Paul (positively identified as an old hacker)

Holder (while I buy it off my brother) of Mark I empeg 00061.

Had a search around to find out how to get it to my empeg and found Tony's Logo Editor. Downloaded that and have followed the instructions in the FAQ but nothing seems to happen.

The only thing I think of is maybe the logo editor is trying to use the wrong COM port to connect to the Empeg. Also, flashing the kernel takes a while (a minute or so), not sure if the logo editor displays any progress information during this time. Tony?

Borislav

Okay - so I try it one last time this morning and it loads up first off. Go figure. This does suggest that I was doing something wrong yesterday but I have no idea what as I'm sure I did it exactly the same way. Anyway, it works now so I'm not too bothered.

BTW - it gives a percentage counter as it uploads the new kernel. Nice work Tony. Now I can play with a few logos

_______________________

Steve - 18GB Mk II Blue

BTW - it gives a percentage counter as it uploads the new kernel. Nice work Tony.

Thanks, but I didn't do that part. The flash uploading utility was released as public source code by Hugo. It's available at the Empeg web site.

I only made some minor modifications to it:
- Changed some of the messages to make them clearer.
- Allowed command-line Com port seleciton.
- Reset the serial port before uploading to prevent the "read 0 bytes" error.

The rest of the Logo Editor (the Windows interface) is mine, although I needed a lot of advice from other folks in putting it together.

I don't know why your Com port didn't work the first time, but I have some possible suggestions:

- The cable was loose when you tried the first time.
- Another Com program was being run at the same time, such as Hyperterminal, Emplode or the Empeg Upgrade utility, and it was claiming the Com port.
- Your Com port shares an IRQ with your modem. For instance, if your modem is on Com3 and your empeg is plugged into Com1, you can't use the modem and talk to the empeg at the same time. If this is the case, you can fix it by moving the empeg cable to Com2.

___________
Tony Fabris

When I was having problems yesterday I did a soft boot to see whether there was anything holding the port. I guess it was the cold boot that did the trick in the end.

_______________________

Steve - 18GB Mk II Blue

Heh, well in the context of nasal demons, I figure this is a step down, since I'm only applying a few patches to an otherwise standard kernel. So overall it should be safe. In this case, you only need a good pair of scissors to fix the problem, and not an exorcist

Hey Drakino,

Nobody has mentioned the persistent settings hack yet.

How about:
clock
irhack
1drive
voladj
settings
(mk2)

I also seem to remember a kernal awhile ago that only showed the custom logo while booting (i.e. never showed the empeg/rio logo). I spent a while searching for this with no luck. If you could add this in too, that would be great. If not, maybe someone else knows what I'm talking about.

Thanks,
Tom

I also seem to remember a kernal awhile ago that only showed the custom logo while booting (i.e. never showed the empeg/rio logo).

I only remember that the small logo on bootup can be changed with the setvisual tool Frank van Gestel has cooked up a while ago. It's on his site.

Edwin de Vaan
mk2 rev.7 # 080000263 (queue 1232) 6+20Gb blue/red

Found it!

kernel that shows only the user-image

Tom

I haven't forgotten about this yet, just been too busy here at work to crank out more kernels recently. I should be able to get around to it here soon though.

Take your time, it's not a big deal.

Later,
Tom