initial inspection of firmware

8887 Views 11 Replies 9 Participants Last post by 495642, Dec 17, 2013

randomblame

Discussion Starter · May 29, 2012 (Edited by Moderator)

So I'm looking through the firmware and I see a few bits of info:
board: SMDK2416
bootloader: Uboot

It definately contains busybox and a linux kernel

Another gpl violation for you pandigital

to extract rootfs.img rename it to rootfs.cpio.bz and extract both layers and you'll see everything there

It looks like it's protected when you reflash by an md5 sum so if you want to make changes be sure to change the md5sum in checksum.md5 to match your new rootfs.img

also I see it borrows a few android componants

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czyzczyz

· #2 · Jul 6, 2012

So has anyone tried hacking or replacing the OS on this thing? Now that they're in the $20-30 zone I'd think I wouldn't be the only one interested in using these as cheap e-paper displays for their programming projects.

All I really want to be able to do is get the browser on it to run in kiosk-mode and occasionally reload a web page. Then I can place it somewhere as a display (sports scores, weather, air quality, etc).

FWIW, the thing shows up in web logs identifying itself with a definition that includes both "Android 2.1" and "Mobile Safari":

Code:

10.0.1.1 - - [06/Jul/2012:08:09:37 -0700] "GET /blog HTTP/1.1" 301 275 "-" "Mozilla/5.0(Linux;U;Android 2.1-update1;pandigital6gs)AppleWebKit/530.17(KHTML,like Gecko)Version/4.0 Mobile Safari/530.17"<br />
10.0.1.1 - - [06/Jul/2012:08:09:37 -0700] "GET /blog/ HTTP/1.1" 200 10127 "-" "Mozilla/5.0(Linux;U;Android 2.1-update1;pandigital6gs)AppleWebKit/530.17(KHTML,like Gecko)Version/4.0 Mobile Safari/530.17"

I guess rather than indicating that the device runs Android these identifier strings could have been included in the browser solely so that web servers would send their mobile-formatted pages.

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unreasonable

· #3 · Jul 7, 2012

Hey randomblame, how did you acquire the firmware? Did you retrieve it from the device itself or elsewhere? I found a firmware on the pandigital site... at:

http://www.support.mirror.pandigital.net:8080/Support/FW/Novel/PRD06E20WWH8/

randomblame said:
So I'm looking through the firmware and I see a few bits of info:
board: SMDK2416
bootloader: Uboot

It definately contains busybox and a linux kernel

Another gpl violation for you pandigital

to extract rootfs.img rename it to rootfs.cpio.bz and extract both layers and you'll see everything there

It looks like it's protected when you reflash by an md5 sum so if you want to make changes be sure to change the md5sum in checksum.md5 to match your new rootfs.img

also I see it borrows a few android componants

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macdaddy

· #4 · Jul 11, 2012

I found this website that has info about hacking the 6" ereader.

http://www.fwma.de/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?n=Main.OYO?color=orange

The OYO E-Book Reader supposedly is the same hardware as the Pandigital 6".

I haven't gotten around to rooting it, but this info did save my P 6" from a brick after I loaded the R61B200 firmware which screwed up the screen and touchscreen.

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czyzczyz

· #5 · Jul 21, 2012

Can anyone confirm that the oho and pan digital 6" are the same hardware? Am I likely to brick the thing if I try loading the OYO firmware onto it, or is there some sanity checking and it'll to load if it's not at least a partial match?

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terminander

· #6 · Aug 22, 2012 (Edited by Moderator)

Just picked up one of these devices so my wife will give me my wpdn back.

Of course I put her book in it (Pdf format) and it doesn't work well. Text too small and when you increase the font size the text doesn't reflow so you need to scroll the screen left and right. Also the email won't work with our hotmail accounts.

I did the update as posted above and no help.

I did review the flash file and it appears to be Linux with some Book Gui and not Android at all. Need to check out if the file system can just be flashed instead of everthing.

Found a few magic key combos that work. Holding keys and turning power switch on, wait a few seconds after screen goes blank then release.

Back & Refresh cause screen calibration, but really seems to do nothing.

Back & Search causes recovery/flash from external SD ( good if you can't get to Software Update)

Back & Volume Up puts you into diagnosic mode with some test you can do.

Haven't found any Usb Serial or Adb for remote shells.

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oxygala

· #7 · Sep 21, 2012

terminander said:
Just picked up one of these devices so my wife will give me my wpdn back.

Of course I put her book in it (Pdf format) and it doesn't work well. Text too small and when you increase the font size the text doesn't reflow so you need to scroll the screen left and right. Also the email won't work with our hotmail accounts.

@terminander, on the menu you'll see an icon (a page with arrows on both sides) which will lead you to the "reading mode" menu. Choose the third option and pdf files will be rearranged fitting to the screen width. That's a rather obscure but very helpful feat of the device.

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terminander

· #8 · Sep 25, 2012

Thanks oxygala. I don't see that menu item.

Under reader I get,

My Library
Dictionary
TOC
Bookmarks
Go To
Font Size
Information
Lock/Unlock

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imrahil

· #9 · Nov 20, 2012

So I'm looking for the S11_05_31_PD_AUO6QNT_ENG_S3C2416 firmware, but it appears that Pandigital has pulled it from their site, or at least made it inaccessible. Does anyone have a copy or know of where one can be obtained? Thanks.

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czyzczyz

· #10 · Jan 9, 2013

Seconded. The firmware doesn't appear to be available. Would love to get a copy.

imrahil said:
So I'm looking for the S11_05_31_PD_AUO6QNT_ENG_S3C2416 firmware, but it appears that Pandigital has pulled it from their site, or at least made it inaccessible. Does anyone have a copy or know of where one can be obtained? Thanks.

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Loner

· #11 · Feb 25, 2013

I got my eReader from 1saleaday from the sale mentioned in one of the other threads. The reason I mention this is that it had an older firmware installed. Unfortunately, I did not back it up. I flashed it with 03_01B_PD_AUO6Q_ENG_S3C2416 and the only difference I saw was the addition of proxy configuration and a minor fix to web standards compliance that made the browser fully pass Acid 1 (yes, the very first one) test. Before, there was some black text on black background, but not anymore. Strangely, that did not fix the same problem (dark text on dark background) on Pandigital's own website. However, I did not get the S11_05_31_PD_AUO6QNT_ENG_S3C2416 version when it was available. I think the question for now is not how to obtain it, but whether it even was compatible with our reader or not. I believe 03_01B_PD_AUO6Q_ENG_S3C2416 was the last available. Could anyone shed some light on this?

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495642

· #12 · Dec 17, 2013

S11_05_31_PD_AUO6QNT_ENG_S3C2416 is for a 'No-Touch' version of the reader from what I've seen... some people have flashed and ended up not being able to use the touch panel to get to the firmware update screen to flash back (though I bet the Page FWD+BACK shortcut would work).

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