yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] ften:
Swap Internal and External SDCard mount points [MOD]

1GB for the default internal SD is a little weak, so with a simple vold.fstab mod you can swap your external SD mounting with your internal SD. This has no effect when in Recovery.

Files

Install SDSWap Recovery Zip

Revert SDSwap Recovery Zip

Warnings

If you installed anything to the SDCard using the standard Android SDCard install option or an app created the , move it to the external SD before you install the zip or the App will most likely not work.

Bugs

If you are using Apps2SD, Links2SD, or you randomly decided to create an EXT partition on your SDcard, the true internal SDCard partition will not mount and your EXT partition will take precedence and will try to mount in Windows. Ignore the "Please Format" warning that pops up. I'm looking into fixing this, if anyone has a suggestion, feel free to suggest. :)

Changes

Original

# Mounts the first usable partition of the specified device
#/devices/platform/awsmc.3/mmc_host for sdio
dev_mount	sdcard	/mnt/sdcard	auto	/devices/virtual/block/nandj
dev_mount	extsd	/mnt/extsd	auto	/devices/platform/sunxi-mmc.1/mmc_host	/devices/platform/sunxi-mmc.0/mmc_host
dev_mount	usbhost1	/mnt/usbhost1	auto	/devices/platform/sw-ehci.1	/devices/platform/sw_hcd_host0	/devices/platform/sw-ohci.1

Modified

# Mounts the first usable partition of the specified device
#/devices/platform/awsmc.3/mmc_host for sdio
dev_mount	sdcard	/mnt/sdcard	auto	/devices/platform/sunxi-mmc.1/mmc_host	/devices/platform/sunxi-mmc.0/mmc_host
dev_mount	extsd	/mnt/extsd	auto	/devices/virtual/block/nandj
dev_mount	usbhost1	/mnt/usbhost1	auto	/devices/platform/sw-ehci.1	/devices/platform/sw_hcd_host0	/devices/platform/sw-ohci.1

A quick "df" in Adb shell should show you if it worked or not.

On a side note, As there is a full sub-forum on SDX, I'll be posting this and future "should be their own topic" posts under there own topics over there, as well as to this thread.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] ften:
Preinstalled Apps folder

I just noticed the /system/preinstall/ directory which is about 61MB of apks that I assume looking at the preinstall.sh file only get touched when you boot the tablet the first time. Just an FYI if anyone is looking for more space.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] comstar:
Happy New Year to All. Thanks for a great thread.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] wkearney99:
Qi charging works

I picked up a cheap Qi-to-micro USB module off eBay. I put it in-between the A701 and the plastic clamshell half that's part of the Inland fold-up case they sell for it (at Microcenter). It charges through all that while on a Docooler base (bought via Amazon, but shipped MUCH faster than the ETA shown).

http://www.ebay.com/itm/161138409587

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00F5STIUK

Like an Qi setup, you have to pay attention to lining up the receiver with the base. Which, when the receiver is laid flat, with the cable extended neatly, ends up with the tablet laying over the transmitter pad. You need to look down closely and verify that the green LED is lit and not blinking. I haven't timed how long it takes to charge, but will try to monitor that today.

My hope is to use one of these as a supplimentary remote control for some home theater equipment and lighting. So being able to avoid plugging it in all the time would be nice. Wear and tear on the USB socket is something I'd like to avoid (my wife is tough on gadget wiring). I'll probably set this up in a desktop letter tray or something, with an insert of some kind to facilitate lining it up properly.

Anyway, just though I'd share.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] goingcrazy614:
Awesome idea! Thanks for letting us all share in you wisdom.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] numus:
I deleted your account. You should be able to reregister it with a different email address.. Sorry it took a little while (been away).

BTW you can email admin@sdx-developers.com in the future if you need to.

I am going to add a contact us page to the main url.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] dsulliii:
Thanks numus, trying now [hm, not successful -- sent an e-mail from gmail.]
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] numus:
I manually activated your account
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] dsulliii:
Thanks! Nice to have that barrier behind me. :)
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] BLuFeNiX:
Hey guys!

I've been really busy recently and I just wanted to say thanks to ften for the awesome mods and for getting the SDX forums going. Also, thanks to everyone else who has participated in this thread, you are all making owning this tablet a better experience.

I hope to find some time to do more development on this tablet, but it may be quite a while.

Cheers, everyone!
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] rone2:
Can you show how you did that? Thanks
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] ften:
Extracting Kernel Config

If anyone would like to help with this, as I must be getting slow in my old age, but for some reason I can't get the default kernel config to extract from the nandc.img. I've done this a few times in the past with other devices, which is why it's odd It's not working now.

So basically I've used split_bootimg.pl to split the Boot image into the ramdisk and the kernel. The ramdisk seems to have split correctly and everything seems to be in working order in it, but when I run the extract-ikconfig script from the generic source on the kernel portion it fails to find the config every time.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] ften:
Custom Boot Logo

Just messing with the boot logo.

Walkthrough

Link

If you are going to try this, I would try to keep any custom logos to about the size of the default, I've seen some phones brick with too large of pngs.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] dsulliii:
VERY cool guide. So much easier to grasp what's going on without mixing in steps involving Windows. I REALLY appreciate you sharing that one with us. THANKS!
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Dawg 'n IT:
Networking

Hey guys. I'm interested in using this tablet for testing at work. Has anyone been able to get this working on a non-wifi network connection?

I noticed the stock tablet has an Ethernet option under Wireless & Networks. Has anyone had luck connecting this to any particular USB ethernet adaptor? I was looking at possibly using Plugable USB 2.0 to 10/100 Fast Ethernet LAN Wired Network Adapter with a micro USB adaptor as a potential option.

Also, do any of the custom ROMs get USB networking going on this thing?

Thanks!
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] BLuFeNiX:
We don't have any real "custom" ROMs yet, just ften's reodexed ROM. I have no idea if the adapter will work.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] chaosforages:
I'll help with a kernel if I can

First, a big thanks to this thread and all the helpful information posted so far.

Now about that custom kernel we would all like.

From that i gather it looks like Azpen wasn't nice enough to enable the "include config" option within the kernel.

They did however allow root through adb and the boot process doesn't seem to be locked down :D

so far I do know from running

cat /proc/version

that the kernel version is "3.0.8+" and it was compiled with Sourcery G++ Lite 2010.09-50

Sometime tomorrow or later today I am going to try to build a generic 3.0.8 with that version of Sourcery and try to see if I can get the stock kernel to load a module without crashing. That would be a start perhaps.

As well, I haven't had time yet to go through the pictures of the tear down that was posted and look for anything that could be a UART or jtag interface.

I don't know how much documentation about the A13 everyone is aware of though Olimex does have a dev board based on it that includes source for both a kernel and for android as well.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] ften:
Here is the ramdisk, extracted ramdisk and the zImage from the stock boot partition.

link

This is probably the Jtag connector;
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] ften:
This is pure speculation, but if your looking as USB to Ethernet to test I would start with trying something with an Asix 88772 chipset. These tend to to work well with Android tablets and our kernel seems to contain the drivers for Asix /sys/module/asix/drivers/usb:asix/ . I only have a USB gigabit ethernet adapters laying around and it does not work with the tablet.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] chaosforages:
I had a look at mine

Thank you for the initrd images.

I pulled the back cover off of mine and had a look at those pads. From the RX and TX silk screened on it would seem to be a UART.

Under /dev there appears to be 8 hardware UARTS on board the A13 SoC, they are ttyGS0-3 and ttyS0-3

Later today I'll try to breakout the pads with some solder and wire and try to figure out what which one is the system console. I'll also do my best to find out what voltage the UART is.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] ften:
Just as a follow up to my Asix 88772 chipset guess, I was right. I picked up a Trendnet TU2-ET100 today and it works perfectly with my OTG adapter. Actually it works faster then my Wifi connection, so thats bonus.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Dawg 'n IT:
Thanks for the replies guys. This helps a lot!
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] ften:
I've sent another Email to Azpen requesting that they request the specific kernel source for the a700 from iNet-tek. It looks like another tablet vendor was able to do it, so I'd imagine they can.

Vendor StoragOptions request and receives source from INET

It's a few years old forum link, but if figure if they released it once to a vendor they might do it again.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] chaosforages:
Got another one

Turns out from the sunxi documentation that JTAG and the first uart are on the micro sd connector. I bought another one of these tablets as the first one is strewn across my desk for convenience and as a reminder that i need to upgrade my soldering iron :(

also I'm waiting on a microsd breakout board. By the way, ften, thank you for emailing Azpen.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] ften:
Another Follow up on the ethernet adapters, the Wii's ethernet adapter works fine too, which is nice because they are like 10 bucks on eBay.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] wingman358:
I was able to fix the terrible idle battery life by getting rid of the Phone service and app.

Symptom was Android System/OS at top of battery usage (at ~50%). Did some research and came across a good recommendation - remove the Phone service and app, which obviously is completely useless on this tablet due to no telephony radio. So I fixed that by deleting /data/data/com.android.phone/ and /system/app/Phone.apk. Now "Android System" is at ~5% battery usage and the result is definitely noticeable! Woohoo :D

---------- Post added at 02:20 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:14 PM ----------

Also noticed much improved performance using Simple Root Swap to establish a swap file.

In the long run though I'd like to figure out how to do this manually by editing the fstab and mounting a swap partition on the real external SD card. Anyone know if/where the fstab file is?
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] scottemick:
I've been trying all day to create an ext4 partition on my internal sdcard to use link2sd. what a pain...I can't get the 2nd partition on /dev/block/nandj2 to mount for anything....I guess I'm going to go with the swapping of the cards for now.

Scott
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] JeffDenver:
I had to install a dialer to get the stock contacts app to appear.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] scottemick:
the fstab file is /etc/vold.fstab.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] wingman358:
Scott, how are you going about creating the partition and what sort of errors are you getting when you try to mount?
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] scottemick:
I was booting into recovery - I have CWM installed. I use adb shell and get the root prompt. I then go into parted. When I first went into parted I remember the sdcard was on /dev/block/nandj and the external sdcard was on mmcblk0 if I remember correctly.. So I go in with

parted /dev/block/nandj

and do

makepartfs primary fat32 0 832

makepartfs primary ext2 832 1376

for example (I tried 2 fat32, and fat32, ext2, & swap as well).

Then when I look at the print command I see my partitions have been created.

When the phone boots it is putting the 1st partition on as the internal sdcard on /dev/block/nandj and the 2nd partition as 32_76 I think it was as a subfolder of the first partition. Checking /proc/partitions I can see that /dev/block/nandj has 2 partitions nandj1 and nandj2.

If I mess with vold.fstab and change the mount for /mnt/sdcard to nandh1 and add in /mnt/sd_ext or just /sd_ext pointing to /dev/block/nandj2, it doesn't work. Depending on the order of what's in there the device gets stuck booting, or the internal sd card doesn't mount...

It is weird too if I do the mount command to see what things are mounted, It looks like the sdcard is mounted to some kind of virtual device address instead of /dev/block/nandj. I am typing this all from memory, but that is basically it. The only thing that has worked so far is swapping the 2 devices - my 16G sdcard for the internal one in vold.swap...That does work.

I also forgot to mention I tried clockwork mod's partition sdcard/format sdcard, didn't work. Probably because it doesn't know the correct device to target.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] mthous01:
Building CyanogenMod for The A700

I've found these so far to get me started, but I have to admit, I'm a complete Noob when it comes to this stuff. I've built a couple of kernels with mods for my old Galaxy Nexus, but this is a bit more cumbersome. If someone can give me a starting point, I've got two of these with the CWM installed from this thread, so I'd be willing to help out getting this going or keeping it going.

http://linux-sunxi.org/Starting_a_CyanogenMod_device_tree

http://linux-sunxi.org/Linux_Kernel
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] vandroid_user:
Android noob

Thank you everyone for all the post.

I am new user for android tablet but not to technology. I am not quite following all the conversation on this thread. I have a Azpen A700 from micro center. I want to upgrade my tablet to Jelly Bean 4.3. My questions are:

1) Can this tablet be upgraded to 4.3?

2) This thread is trying to achieve that upgrade and it is work in progress?

3) Do I follow the steps in page 1 to root and install a new image?

Please reply and let me know. Thanks.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] mthous01:
Not yet, we don't have kernel source to move to 4.3 as of yet.

We probably need to get CyanogenMod 10.1.2 on here before we attempt to move to 4.3.

Kingo Root seems to work well, I used the Kingo tool to unroot first, then to add root back. It worked simply on two tablets, very fast and simple. Use the second post to install ClockWorkMod recovery build 5. Make a backup of your tablet immediately after installing CWM, and copy it to a computer to use for restore if you run into trouble and can't download the zip from here.

Do you have any experience building CyanogenMod? I'm wanting to jump into some simple dev work for this, but I could use some step by step help to do it the first time. I think I could learn pretty quickly, as I have experience using GitHub and building kernels from source.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] vandroid_user:
mthous01,

Unfortunately I don't have any experience in CyanogenMod. I am willing to learn. I need some help to get me started. Any suggestions.... Anyone?
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] mthous01:
Do you think you can reupload that ramdisk, extracted ramdisk and the zImage again, the link is dead.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] ften:
Done;

http://d-h.st/whb
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] mthous01:
Thanks. Any further attempts at building a kernel? I'm curious as to whether or not we can use the stock ramdisk with a uImage built from source from the allwinner github. I've done some browsing, and it seems that others have been successful in building these if they copy the modules from stock system over.

http://xdaforums.com/showpost.php?p=48720567&postcount=504

I'm trying to rebuild my mind around how to flash these back to the unit? Can we make a CWM flashable zip for them? If so, I'd think we could build a stock kernel zip and a modified kernel zip, that way if there was a failure, it would be easy to get back to a working tablet.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] ften:
Unfortunately, it's my busy season at work and I've been non stop at work for the last 2 months so I haven't had really any time to do any more digging.

Yes you can use these to build a flashable zip, thats how I did the boot logo about 20 or so posts back.

I've flashed a few bad kernels and so far I've always been able to get back to stock, so it's pretty hard to perma brick it unless your doing something really crazy.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] mthous01:
Stock Kernel Zip for those interested. I'm working on getting my build environment together, and downloading the source from allwinner. I'm thinking that I will build the 3.0.8+ kernel, repack it with the stock ramdisk, flash it and see what happens. Stock kernel is just nandc flash, taken from Bluefenix. His work, my mod.

STOCK Kernel Zip
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] mthous01:
So, is anyone feeling adventurous? I've built a kernel based on the linux-sunxi source, no modifications. The kernel packed with this has been repackaged with the Stock Ramdisk and bootimg.cfg. I do not have my tablet on me, and I won't get home till after 2AM my time. If anyone is interested, PM me and I will send a link to my Google Drive download. Make a CWM backup before flashing anything, anytime, anywhere, on any device, period! YMMV, no guarantees, I take no responsibility for explosions, nuclear war, the meltdown of your tablets circuitry, lack of booting, getting enough bricked devices to build a doghouse, etc. I have posted the Stock Kernel in my previous post, so if this fails, you should be able to revert.

Kernel Source

Edit: By the way, I took ften's information and built this as a 3.0.8+ kernel. Fingers Crossed.

EDIT2: IT BOOTS!!! IT BOOTS!!!

EDIT3: And... I spoke too soon. Used abootimg the wrong way, and the new zImage didn't get repacked. I only reflashed the stock kernel... phooey
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] goingcrazy614:
Keep trying. Progress sounds great. Next is a ROM!

---------- Post added at 06:29 AM ---------- Previous post was at 06:26 AM ----------

I would help you out with testing but the A700's I have belong to my girls and they would hate me if I bricked them lol
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] mthous01:
I can verify that flashing the STOCK zip that I linked before did get the unit back to it's prior state. This thing is truly almost unbrickable.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] mthous01:
Looks like no go on building from source. No bootloader icon, must be something not communicating between uboot.omg and the kernel.

EDIT: Further nightmares. Seems I should have read more and known that a wubi install of ubuntu would never stick for long. I'll have to look into dual booting the hard way to set up a proper environment. (Can't yet let go of windows, the wife is a tech-phobe, and will only use windows for anything she must do on the computer)
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] ften:
Sweet I see you already put this up over there. Awesome progress.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] mthous01:
See my most recent post. It's a good starter. Fixing build issues with guesswork and googling right now. Trying to get it to build once all the way thru.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] mthous01:
From what I could gather from Olimex, they just draw from the linux-sunxi github sources. Not sure these are optimized for android.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] chaosforages:
I'll go with too many bricks

Well, I built one kernel and dd'd it to the nand area that the kernel goes.

Livesuit on linux nor win7 hasn't been able to bring it back so far. :D

I did get my microsd breakout board, however I've been a bit busy to fire that up and see if it will tell me a sob story over the uart. perhaps next week when i have some time.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] mthous01:
That's awesome. Can't hurt to have all the info we can get. I'm building CM10.1 right now, and so far so good. We'll see if there's a flashable zip to attempt to use in the future. I am by no means a developer, and I could use the help of one who has dug into building for non-supported devices before. I'm tempted to ask in the HP touchpad forums to see if I can get some help from them (there's a device that is completely non-supported and they already have 10.2, with some early KitKat builds as well. If Hashcode from the Droid and Kindle fire development threads wasn't so darn busy, I think I'd ask for some help there too.

---------- Post added at 09:46 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:45 PM ----------

Ok, so current build makes it to the kernel and the mali drivers. I was intending to copy those drivers in with the compatibility patch and run the stock kernel/ramdisk (zip already made). Does anyone know if I'm doing this right, or will the stock kernel/ramdisk/drivers/modules break a CM ROM? Also, do I just eliminate the Android.mk in both of these directories to skip them?
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] mthous01:
Building!

I've got it to build thru to the mali and kernel, and I have now commented them out of the makefile in the common folder. Hopefully (fingers crossed), I can at least get a zip file that we can start with.

---------- Post added at 12:48 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:03 AM ----------

Any chance you have the recovery.fstab that lists all of these? I might need it for building CyanogenMod

---------- Post added at 12:53 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:48 AM ----------

Built thru to making the images, and failed at the bootloader? I wasn't aware that I was building a bootloader with this.

Built images for kernel (boot.img), and systemfs (system.img).

Thinking I need a data.img, and then maybe it's flashable? Does anyone here know?
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] BLuFeNiX:
You can pull it out of the CWM image (or directly off of your device via ADB if CWM is installed). If you're not sure how to do that, let me know and I'll try to make some time to do it later tonight.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] mthous01:
I'm having trouble finding where it is on the device so that I can ADB pull it. Can you give me a place to look?
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] BLuFeNiX:
I think it's /etc/recovery.fstab (when booted into CWM). I don't recall the path (might be similar) when booted into Android. You could also try something like this in ADB shell:

find / | grep fstab

You might need to install busybox to have access to those commands. I don't recall if they are built-in for our version of Android.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] mthous01:
Got it. Thanks a bunch.

---------- Post added at 02:18 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:58 PM ----------

Did you build your recovery via a development environment, or with the automated builder online?
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] BLuFeNiX:
I wanted to try the online builder, but it was down for maintenance at the time. I used unbootimg and unpack-split (link to these tools in my dropbox) to modify an existing CWM I found for a different device. I just replaced the kernel module that controls NAND access (nand.ko), updated the fstab, and added some other tweaks until I got it working well enough.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] mthous01:
Finally I got a full build! Now it won't flash due to what seems to be build.prop mismatches to start with. Time to debug!

I thought I might run into this. Seems because the Acer A700 is official, it causes issues when the build properties are set correctly in the make files. Time to rework!