[Tuto] [EN/FR] Install/Installer nBoot + ControlX (+Linux)

→ **MyCalcs** profile · by **geekpersonman** » 20 May 2017, 00:57

Nice work on the splash screens critor, I cant wait to be able to flash a custom boot screen on my calculator.
this is very minor, but it seems like the black and white progress bar does not change vertical position along with the textured one, (e.g. on the cx color evt splash with the green bar, the logo gets partially covered)
And sorry again for all the stupid ideas, but wouldn't it be safer and easier to allow custom boot splashes if you did them through ControlX, similar to the way it did things pre 4.4.4 where it didnt fix the Nboot corruption yet?

→ **MyCalcs** profile · by **parrotgeek1** » 20 May 2017, 01:00

geekpersonman wrote:Nice work on the splash screens critor, I cant wait to be able to flash a custom boot screen on my calculator.
this is very minor, but it seems like the black and white progress bar does not change vertical position along with the textured one, (e.g. on the cx color evt splash with the green bar, the logo gets partially covered)
And sorry again for all the stupid ideas, but wouldn't it be safer and easier to allow custom boot splashes if you did them through ControlX, similar to the way it did things pre 4.4.4 where it didnt fix the Nboot corruption yet?

it is impossible to fix this without a boot2 patch, because nboot disables the fancy progress bar because it needs the image space for its code

→ **MyCalcs** profile · by **geekpersonman** » 20 May 2017, 01:34

parrotgeek1 wrote:it is impossible to fix this without a boot2 patch, because nboot disables the fancy progress bar because it needs the image space for its code

So what changes between it turning on and the fancy bar working to loading the file system? Does ControlX just know where the fancy bar actually is and Boot2 doesn't?

And as a side note, what is the principle of operation for all of these patches, where can I find a comprehensive explanation of how the patches are loaded in to boot2?

→ **MyCalcs** profile · by **parrotgeek1** » 20 May 2017, 07:39

geekpersonman wrote:
parrotgeek1 wrote:it is impossible to fix this without a boot2 patch, because nboot disables the fancy progress bar because it needs the image space for its code

So what changes between it turning on and the fancy bar working to loading the file system? Does ControlX just know where the fancy bar actually is and Boot2 doesn't?

And as a side note, what is the principle of operation for all of these patches, where can I find a comprehensive explanation of how the patches are loaded in to boot2?

1) boot2 doesn't know where it is, it loads the original corrupted manuf with nboot in it

2) part of the reason why this hasn't been fixed is that critor asked someone to make the boot2 patches, but he didn't explain how they worked, and he doesn't answer emails. that is also why it is stuck on boot2 4.0.3 instead of 4.4, why os < 3.6 can't be installed, and why you have to press reset the first time it boots (his patcher doesn't run on first install)

→ **MyCalcs** profile · by **critor** » 20 May 2017, 10:01

geekpersonman wrote:Nice work on the splash screens critor, I cant wait to be able to flash a custom boot screen on my calculator.
this is very minor, but it seems like the black and white progress bar does not change vertical position along with the textured one, (e.g. on the cx color evt splash with the green bar, the logo gets partially covered)

Correct.
Boot1 is launching ControlX which is launching Boot2.
Boot1 and Boot2 won't show the splash data, as it's corrupted and doesn't pass the validation check.

ControlX loads the splash data, and fixes+displays it in all cases.

The progress bar is included in the splash data.
Boot2 then doesn't erase the screen, so you still have the background, but rejects the splash data and defaults to the monochrome Nspire progress bar.

Since Boot2 loads the corrupted splash data in flash, just patching the validation check won't be enough - the data will still be corrupted and won't decompress properly.
We can't either fix the splash data in flash, since it would just mean killing nBoot.

→ **MyCalcs** profile · by **geekpersonman** » 20 May 2017, 20:53

parrotgeek1 wrote:2) part of the reason why this hasn't been fixed is that critor asked someone to make the boot2 patches, but he didn't explain how they worked, and he doesn't answer emails. that is also why it is stuck on boot2 4.0.3 instead of 4.4, why os < 3.6 can't be installed, and why you have to press reset the first time it boots (his patcher doesn't run on first install)

Do we know how the patches are being applied to Boot2, (for example how the patch code gets from being in ControlX to adjusting the functionality of Boot2) we just don't know what the patches are doing to it, or are the patches just some code that we know in the end achieves this modification to boot2, not having any idea at all how it achieves this or what it is doing?

And P.S. @parrotgeek1 the tmpcnv() function does not appear to be covered by the CAS 4.4 patcher either.

→ **MyCalcs** profile · by **critor** » 20 May 2017, 20:56

geekpersonman wrote:Do we know how the patches are being applied to Boot2, (for example how the patch code gets from being in ControlX to adjusting the functionality of Boot2) we just don't know what the patches are doing to it, or are the patches just some code that we know in the end achieves this modification to boot2, not having any idea at all how it achieves this or what it is doing?

ControlX does decompress the Boot2 image in RAM, then patch it if it belongs to the supported images (the one with the best support being 4.0.3), then launch it.