[Upgrading, Modifying and Unlocking] madhits45:
Hello all Intel atom owners,

I am the owner of a device destine for the trash heap (e-waste sucks) but I'd like to save it from that fate. My device is a z2560 soc asus Trio TX201LA. Its tablet half is what has been deemed ewaste by asus & id like to save it from that fate. Windows 10 has also ended support for clovertrail now so that also SUCKS..

This thread is being started to talk about development on these devices that intel gave up on. Android is primary focus but I don't want to limit it to that cuz the soc can do more. I'd like to discuss the following:

1. How the device boots? In what order? What files are used? Variations per device? Similarities between asus & Dell and Samsung (3 largest intel atom inside device makers during 2011-2016)?

2. What tools are available to us to save our devices and in save I mean upgrade.5 tools Ive found that are so interesting are the following:

2A. Intel Manufacturing Flash Tool lite (For dual booting devices specifically?)

2B. Intel Platform Flash Tool Lite (For both atom & intels Edison devices): https://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/flash-tool-lite-user-manual

2C. Intel xFSTK Downloader (rescue flasher, seems to be primarily for bay trail but also clovertrail)

2D. ASUS Flash Tool, not sure about this one, I bet its only for zenfone, have to check.

2E.. Flashall for Edison devices only, so useless for atom tablets: /docs/DOC-25154 https://communities.intel.com/docs/DOC-25154

4. I'd also like to look at droidboot ver 2.0 and 2.1, whats the difference? It seems droidboot is intel and is intel own way of getting android to boot. What is also interesting is that some devices running android 5 got an update that changed droidboot a lot. So much so that it has a uefi partition (dell venue 7, asus memo pad 7 & maybe others) & after that update boots android differently using what seems to be a more generic x86 android (like a pc image).

5. Intel DnX (download and execute) mode. This seems to be a product of Device updates beyond droidboot 2.1 and android 5.0. Id like to discuss if its possible to add DnX to devices that don't have it. It runs from an image off the main disk just like droidboot and even android. So the theory is it could be simply added to other images & devices?

6. Alternative OS options (Reference: https://communities.intel.com/thread/120652):

6A. Sailfish OS devices that are atom based such as the Geeksphone Revolution & Jolla Tablet have sailfishOS, but so do dual boot atom devices including CHUWI hiboot, Hi8, a bunch of Lenovo devices, to many to mention here.

6B. Ubuntu this is possible but only if clovertrail can gain either DNX, droidboot 2.1 or uefi (my theory) .

6C. Remix OS see: https://xdaforums.com/remix/remix-os/release-remix-os-pc-32-bit-t3305916 Remix OS can be run on our devices but again only if we can gain droidboot 2.1, uefi & or DNX (again my theory)

6D. MultiROM for intel (unknown) see: https://www.xda-developers.com/install-use-multirom-xdatv/ There is also support for galaxy tab 3 10.1 a fellow z2560 soc device. So getting multirom support could be added for almost all z2560 devices via this support see: https://www.getdroidtips.com/dual-boot-galaxy-tab-3-10-1-dual-boot-patcher/

6E. Others including second stage bootloaders. Google that term and many come up.

Ok so that is about it. I did not include a lot of links here purposefully, almost every term I used here can be googled for the info I found. The x86 android devices are flexable and able to do more but have primarily not been developed for because intel sucked at advertising them, failed to get them into apple devices and killed them off early. So we are where we are but intel is also very open. There are so many tools to develop for this platform if you know and understand x86. I believe I could rebuild my entire tablet image using the Intel Manufacturing Flash Tool include the newer droidboot 2.1, dnx image, and a updated kernel and system image of android with my device specific drivers and be up and running to a point where I could then dual boot other OS's. I theorize that if you tried this and failed you could still use the Intel xFSTK Downloader to rescue the device completely. Yes I'm a noob & its why I want to learn more via this thread. Think this development is a waste of time, see: https://www.asus-zenfone.com/2015/07/asus-zenfone-2-running-windows-7.html

I'd love to see other intel owners join and discuss these ideas, grab your intel device dust it off and join me in experimenting.