[Miscellaneous Android Development] xyancompgeek:
For all you Indian Users, or anybody who owns a Portronics Limebox running GB; root and CWM has finally been achieved!

Disclaimer: I am not responsible if you end up bricking your device. This procedure has been known to work for my Limebox. Deviate from the procedure and you have no right to blame me....

After lots of hours of extensive searching (with absolutely no help from portronics), I found an exact match to our device: G-Box (See the Remote???). Our Device is a Rockchip Processor, specifically RK2918. Rockchip processors are known to lock down the /system partition with a filesystem called cramfs. Don't worry, that can be solved too!

Before we start, Understand the 3 modes you can set the device in:

1. Normal Power On (Self-Explanatory)

2. Recovery Mode (Stick a Pin in the Reset Hole and keep the Power Button pressed at the same time)

3. Flash Mode:

i. Disconnect the AC Power.

ii. Connect a USB Male to Male Cable in the LOWER PORT. (similar results don't come from the upper one). Connect the other end to the PC.

iii. Stick the Pin in the reset hole. Simultaneously, connect the AC Power.

iv. The device should turn on with a blue light and no display on the screen. The PC will detect the device. Use the flash mode drivers given below.

v. Flash Mode generally works in all conditions, even if it does not boot, unless you do something really stupid :fingers-crossed: !

Now onto the procedure!

Obtaining Root

1. As i mentioned earlier, our device is exactly similiar to 'G-Box'. See the thread here (on android forums) for all development pertaining to their device. Most of what I've mentioned here comes from this forum (Big thanks to all of them :) )

2. Download the Official Firmware here or a Modded Lite version here (credits to xzer0).

3. Download the img Unpacker (RK29xx ImageTools : big thanks to wendal!!)

4. Use the img Unpacker to unpack the Official/Modded Firmware. If you are downloading the Official, be sure to Pack the Firmware after unpacking, since it adds the root files to the image file then. You do not need to repack for the modded one, since that is pre-rooted.

5. The Firmware will be unpacked to a folder called 'Temp'. Ignore the folder 'System'.

6. Start the Flasher (RK29update.exe). Connect the device in Flash mode to your PC and install the drivers. RK29Update should detect the device (It will say 'Detected' or something like that at the bottom)

7. For Parameter, choose the parameter file inside the Temp folder. Do not touch the offset values AT ALL.

8. For Loader, choose the .bin file that has 'loader' in the file name (in the Temp folder). Let its offset be blank, if it is.

9. For all the remaining (except backup), point them to their respective files in the 'image' folder inside 'temp'.

10. Tick Mark all except Backup. Before Pressing Update, click Format. Let it finish and wait for the device to be re-detected.

11. Press Update and wait until it finishes and the device disconnects from your computer. (It may disconnect once or twice in between. Be patient. Look at the Log on the right side to be absolutely sure when to unplug it.)

12. Your device should immediately reboot into recovery. It will format /DATA, /CACHE and /uDisk. When it is done, it will reboot into Andoid. (Though the interface looks different, it is more or less an exact copy of the Portronics).

13. Enjoy your rooted Limebox!

Known Issues:

1. Moody at boot. Takes some time to show the 'ANDROID' text on the screen. Be patient.

2. Cant get into recovery on the modded firmware. The Recovery Mode trick causes it to simply switch off. No hassle, with Flash Mode, you have the best kind of recovery!

Optional Stuff (Be Careful. You have been warned. :D )

CWM Recovery

I technically do not encourage using CWM on this device because i've had bad experiences with it. But its nothing that can't be fixed with a re-flash. So.....the technique is simple. Obtain a recovery.img file (specifically for any RK2918 device) from here or here or anywhere you like. When you flash the new rom, in place of the recovery.img file in the \temp\image\ folder, choose this one. If additional files are given to flash, you can flash those too. However, like i said, there are complications, it may not always work. But if you face any issues, simply reflash with the official recovery.

Removing Apps

If you wish to remove apps from the Official or Modded firmware (which is difficult, since its locked down with cramfs), after unpacking the image, go into \system\app\, delete the apps you dont want and then repack (Important!). For some reason, I've never been able to add an app. You don't need to do it this way if you use the Ext3 Image (Read on!!!)

Ext3 FileSystem

So, as i mentioned earlier, you can get a system.img that is of ext3 filesystem instead of cramfs. Simply download the image file from here and use that for the same flashing procedure. (Credits to Finless (Bob) and Paincake)

Need someone for small testing!

Can somebody find the /backup folder in the root directory? What are the contents?