Smartbook G138 - Stable Rom (testing)

Hi everyone,

After loads of hardwork by cmonex I am testing a new smartbook ROM.

BookDigital hacked the cplmain.cpl so they would hide the fact the rom was shadow (loads into and runs from ram not the rom).

It appears so far cmonex's fix allows correct reporting of ram and looks to have fixed stability issues. I have tested at length since Sunday, including trying certain action that would always crash the original OS and often result in a hard re-set required, and so far have not had a single crash. I have also done a few soft re-sets and not had the OS not work following them.

Looks like the hacked cplmain.cpl was causing apps to write into areas of ram occupied by the rom (well best guess here).

Anyway I will quote cmonex's post with all roms she built. There are some XIP ones (OS runs from rom) but they are slow to the point I wouldn't recommend them.



Hope you all enjoy the results of cmonex's hard work and would be glad if anyone trying it reports any bugs or crashes.

I am now going to try and build a custom rom in the same mould as the 900c one (though more basic to start with). Progress will be reported here.

If anyone would like to suggest must have apps, utilities etc. please drop them in this thread so I can collate requirements to make it as usefull to as many people as possible.

Thanks for reading

John

Title edited by poster request by C:Amie

Well my next update... I have been using the smartbook for loads of tasks, photo editing (5megapixel photos), browsing, RDP, Browsing over Bluetooth, IRC amongst other things. (4hrs per day since, and including, Sunday)

Last night I had to do some work from home so decided a good chance to continue testing so installed Softmaker office trial and spent 5hrs on textmaker using pre-designed .doc files from work. 5hrs straight (with a little browsing and IRC for a break near the end). The fixed rom is still performing flawlessly.

I have not had one single freeze or crash of any software since I installed this rom. I think it is safe to say the stability issues seem to be completely gone.

Hopefully some other will try this soon and report back.

John

good

tomorrow i will be online on IRC and we can try compression

Oh sorry, was out and about all weekend. Only just saw this.

Smartbook still stable, no crashes or problems.

John

Nice to know as well the Socket BT driver for ppc2003 works out of the box (well you need to install on pc and grab cabs out of socket dir in program files).

But it installs and runs with no hexedit. drivers are version 7.0.20.0

I am trying them as bt connection was dropping after a while and wouldn't reconnect. Think improvements mentioned fixed lan profile disconnection.

Just thought I would report the drivers work if anyone else uses the socket card.

John

Edited by mr-mac 2008-04-21 2:53 PM

that will be because this cenet 4.2 has the MS aygshell in rom


by the way when are you on IRC to test compression in rom?

Edited by cmonex 2008-04-22 12:43 AM

Whenever suits you for compression....

Only thing wrong with socket drivers is some of the options menu's are tiny. What was that utility that let's you re-size the boxes? Seems to be more stable as BT didn't disconnect while browsing last night.

hmmmm if I could just alter somthing to make the options boxes bigger out of the box.

Cheers

John

Hi,

WinWatch?

Well another week goes by and I still havn't has a single crash

Been seriously busy at work so hope to get on IRC soon so we can test rom compression which will be the first stage of starting a custom rom.

Anyway off for now... Hopefully someone else with a G138 will try the fixed rom soon so we can have someone else test it for stability.

John

heh I can try, I'm at home now..

also, looking forward to seeing you on irc to try the compression

Edited by cmonex 2008-05-02 10:28 PM

Another quick update,

The smartbook has been 100% stable since I installed this rom. Think 3+ weeks now. Thanks for all your hard work cmonex.

Cmonex, sorry I didn't make it on last night was at work till very late (had to do some data extracts for a possible problem) and by time I got home I managed a quick snack then straight to bed.

I guess the next time I will get spare time now will be Sunday (but I may have a little time tonight, If I do I will stick my nose on IRC and see if you are about).

Thanks

John

it's OK, sunday is fine.

Hi,

I'm the happy owner of a Smartbook G138 that I recently purchased from mr-mac. I just wanted to mention in this thread that I was able to install cmonex's Shadow ROM update and it appears to be working fine. It's reporting the correct amount of RAM now. I haven't encountered any crashes either. Thank you cmonex for all of your hard work on this, and thanks mr-mac for bringing my attention to this thread. As I didn't have a Smartbook until recently, I wasn't following Smartbook-related threads that closely. Cmonex, let me know if you need any testers for future Smartbook OS updates.

Thanks again,

Mike

Think he is a little confused...

I am not guilty for selling it but did send him (the winner of auction) a message on ebay directing him to this rom.

Smartbooks (the new 900c )

Sorry about that, mr-mac! You're right, the seller was someone else. I just assumed that you were the seller since I got the message from you on ebay after my purchase.

In that case, thanks even more for your help!

Mike