Hacking Express gate (Asus Splashtop)

[drosky]

I have been able to do a minor hack on Express gate on my P5Q-E based machine. As shipped, Express gate only supports up to 1440x1050 screen resolution. This doesn't look very good on a native 1600x1200 display and I wanted to change it.

The P5Q-E has the HDD version of Express gate, so the files are installed normally to the Windows partition (VFAT or NTFS). The files making up the linux environment are in a directory called ASUS.SYS. Most of the files comprising the system have an unusual ".sqx" extension, but it turns out they are normal squashfs files and can be easily unsquashed with the normal tools.

Once unsquashed, you will find a relatively familiar assortment of system and application files. Express gate uses TinyX, and the archive with the appropriate files is bs-tinyx.sqx.

After modifying the setresolution script, re-squashing the archive, and putting it back into ASUS.SYS, Express gate now runs in 1600x1200 native screen resolution - pretty cool.

With access to the file system and apps, it may be possible to do some other things, like hack in an xterm to make it a lot easier to poke around the Express gate environment and see what's there.

[Kano]

New updated instructions - as nice script - automatically adds all sqx files created, discards the rest.
You have access to the image directly at /tmp/input of course to fetch your already changed sqx files for backup purpose.
I use that together with a vbox image that directly works on the IMG.

#!/bin/sh
IMAGE="FILE.IMG"
offset=$(($(sfdisk -d $IMAGE|grep start=|head -n1|sed 's/.*start=\s*//;s/,.*//')*512))
OPTIONS="umask=000,shortname=mixed,quiet,utf8"
INPUT=/tmp/input
FIX=/tmp/fix
rm -rf $FIX
mkdir -p $INPUT $FIX
umount $INPUT
mount -o loop,offset=$offset,$OPIONS $IMAGE $INPUT
cd $INPUT
for x in *.sqx; do unsquashfs -dest $FIX/${x/.sqx} $x; done
cat <<EOT
You can edit now using this way:

a) Change files in the dir you want to edit.
b) Create new package like this:

mksquashfs va-xxx va-xxx.sqx -noappend

c) Enter "exit" when done to apply changes.
EOT
cd $FIX
bash
cd $INPUT
cp -v $FIX/*.sqx $INPUT
dd of=$INPUT/version bs=1 seek=32 count=0
umount $INPUT
rm -rf $FIX

[drosky]

Got a terminal working in express gate. There was an xterm binary in /bin, but it didn't run due to a missing shared library. I copied over an rxvt binary from Puppy Linux. I don't yet know how to create a launcher for it in the normal panel, so I started it from xinitrc and it works great :) It's now much easier to poke around.

The file manager that is installed with express gate is brain damaged so you can only view USB storage devices, so I also copied over ROX, which works fine other than using default icons, since I didn't bother copying over all of its data.

Next project might be to get mplayer working so internet videos besides just flash can be viewed, maybe also xpdf to be able to view pdf files.

[Kano]

What squashfs version did you use? Also did you alter the version file? I wanted to fix the pidgin package (1 byte change only for icq) but when I recompess it then I only get an error message when I try to start.

[drosky]

What squashfs version did you use? Also did you alter the version file? I wanted to fix the pidgin package (1 byte change only for icq) but when I recompess it then I only get an error message when I try to start.

Unfortunately, my internet connection at home is down today, and I don't have this on my work computer, so at the moment I can't answer the version question for squashfs, except that it is the version that is currently in the repository for OpenSuse 11. It might be in the main repository, or it might be in the Packman repository, I'm not sure which.

I re-compressed it with default settings for mksquashfs. I did not alter any other files, just re-compressed, copied it back to ASUS.SYS and it worked.

[Kano]

With the new updates from the website you have to update file size and md5sum for changed files. Therefore i wrote a pascal tool to do so. As there does not seem to be much interest in it I only show here the structure of the file called version (inside your ASUS.SYS or directly on SSD):

type header=record
vendor:array[0..15] of char;
date:array[0..7] of char;
status:qword;
end;
entry=record
name:array[0..31] of char;
date:array[0..7] of char;
status:qword;
size:longword;
marker:array[0..11] of byte;
md5sum:array[0..15] of byte;
end;


With that tool I was able to fix ICQ for pidgin.

[Kano]

Btw. it is relatively easy to add command line apps in new containers, when you just create a sqx analog to the already existing ones. Just need to figure out how to add em to the menu. Also there is a nice trick to run a root terminal: just create a new pack with rxvt or whatever you like and add a symlink to gnome-terminal. Then you just have to press ALT-F1 and you are root. No need to hack another package. Also you can insmod missing nic modules like for example E1000 for vbox:
insmod /lib/modules/e1000.ko

[drosky]

With the new updates from the website you have to update file size and md5sum for changed files. Therefore i wrote a pascal tool to do so. As there does not seem to be much interest in it I only show here the structure of the file called version (inside your ASUS.SYS or directly on SSD):


With that tool I was able to fix ICQ for pidgin.

I have the latest version for my MB (P5Q-E), which is version 1.2.3.1 from 2008/6/30, and that version apparently does not check. Maybe there are newer versions for some motherboards. In my version, the loop files used for persistence are checked for MD5 and date, but I guess the squashfs archives are not. Probably the next update will have that.

I would be interested in your tool since I am still interested in hacking new things in. In fact, at some point I am thinking of maybe starting a wiki on this to organize various scripts, hacks, and improvements

When you say a pascal tool, do you mean the pascal programming language that was very popular in the 1970's? I studied that in college, but I haven't seen it used much anymore.

[drosky]

Btw. it is relatively easy to add command line apps in new containers, when you just create a sqx analog to the already existing ones. Just need to figure out how to add em to the menu. Also there is a nice trick to run a root terminal: just create a new pack with rxvt or whatever you like and add a symlink to gnome-terminal. Then you just have to press ALT-F1 and you are root. No need to hack another package. Also you can insmod missing nic modules like for example E1000 for vbox:
insmod /lib/modules/e1000.ko

Yes, I also have not figured out how to add things to the menu. I guess it's lower priority than fixing other things. Right now, I have been starting rxvt from xinitrc, so I always start with a terminal visible.

Yes, insmod is there. I have been looking at getting Intel iwlwifi working, since that would allow it to be used with a lot more notebooks. The problem is that the kernel may not be configured properly to use mac80211 (I'm not 100% sure yet), and if that's the case a new kernel may be required which would be a much bigger project. The source tarball from Splashtop.com contains a few patches, but there's no way of knowing if that's exactly what Asus uses.

[Kano]

I created lots of sqx files already, basically converted from the debian etch packages. I have got mc, vim, zip, rar, ... - all accessed using ALT-F1 key for xterm - and of course a fixed pidgin ;)

[drosky]

I have only been modifying existing sqx files. If you create new ones, do they get mounted automatically, or do you have to tell the system about them somewhere? Thx.

[Kano]

They are automatically used. It is much more easy that way. Basically you only need to add the dirs and a vactl file that mounts em. I extracted debian packages and used those. Also I use now xterm because rxvt did not display mc correctly. Funnyly xterm started from rxvt showed mc in color, now only blackwhite directly. With the symlink to gnome-terminal you can really easy start a terminal with ALT-F1. You don't have to modify any of the existing sqx files. Also you can use a vactl file to insmod the modules you like to use, maybe 8139cp.ko or e1000.ko.

[sojourner]

Hi, Im looking for a way to flash a modified image file to the SSD in my P5E3 premium but so far, it seems the updater will only accept dfi files. Any hints on converting a raw img into a dfi?

[Kano]

file will tell you what it is. They did not invent something new, just gzip -9 compressed IMG with DFI instead of IMG.gz ending.

[sojourner]

file will tell you what it is. They did not invent something new, just gzip -9 compressed IMG with DFI instead of IMG.gz ending.

Hmm, I tried a gunzip on the dfi file originally after doing a file on it but did not get back a mountable image file. I tried your suggestion to rename the file.img.gz as file.dfi and used the updater to load the file but at the end of decompression, it reported that the version is 0.0.0.0 and that the md5 did not match. Briefly comparing the beginning of the original dfi file and my own shows quite a bit of difference. The oem dfi contains a small header with the date of release, version number and some chars which I assume to be the md5 the updater was complaining about.

[Michael]

Kano, enjoy :) http://feeds.theinquirer.net/c/554/f/7127/s/18d1974/story01.htm

[Kano]

The header is really trivial:

get header (consists of 48 bytes, 16 bytes are md5sum)

mv FILE.DFI FILE.IMG.gz
gunzip FILE.IMG.gz
dd if=FILE.IMG of=header bs=1 count=32

then forget this file and use the modified one now:

openssl dgst -md5 -binary MODIFIED_FILE.IMG >new-md5sum
cat header new-md5sum MODIFIED_FILE.IMG > NEW_FILE.IMG
gzip -9 NEW_FILE.IMG
mv NEW_FILE.IMG.gz NEW_FILE.DFI

Please try this code, should be easy enough to follow it.

[sojourner]

The header is really trivial:

get header (consists of 48 bytes, 16 bytes are md5sum)

mv FILE.DFI FILE.IMG.gz
gunzip FILE.IMG.gz
dd if=FILE.IMG of=header bs=1 count=32

then forget this file and use the modified one now:

openssl dgst -md5 -binary MODIFIED_FILE.IMG >new-md5sum
cat header new-md5sum MODIFIED_FILE.IMG > NEW_FILE.IMG
gzip -9 NEW_FILE.IMG
mv NEW_FILE.IMG.gz NEW_FILE.DFI

Please try this code, should be easy enough to follow it.

Thanks, I crafted a dfi manually for testing just now but your script is definitely going to make development a lot easier.

[curaga]

I'd like to try it in Qemu. But Asus' servers are really slow to load the menu, and trying to download the ~170mb splashtop file doesn't even begin. A mirror anyone?

[Kano]

The file you need is over 400 mb, of course you could install win + use exe installer too, but then you have to install grub4dos or grub2 inside win as bootloader. The direct way requires a huger download...

[sojourner]

I kept getting the No USB Device Found message when trying to use the updater to flash my modified dfi. I'm wondering if the previous failed flashing messed up the Expressgate in the SSD. Expressgate was a black screen upon reboot with a press esc to enter os at the bottom. Any suggestions?

[sojourner]

The file you need is over 400 mb, of course you could install win + use exe installer too, but then you have to install grub4dos or grub2 inside win as bootloader. The direct way requires a huger download...

He should be able to use the 170mb file by gunzipping the dfi and removing the 48 byte header at the front. I managed to mount the 1.2.40 image that way.

[Kano]

A bit hard to say as i don't own such a board - send me one if you like to ;) I would test the changes in Vbox or Qemu first and copy the modified sqx files into a new pure image. Maybe the BIOS detects the SSD differently - the kernel just looked for FAT16 and DVMUSB as label.

[Kano]

For the 2nd thing: the tiny download is usally the exe installer, or did you find the DFI directly too?

[sojourner]

For the 2nd thing: the tiny download is usally the exe installer, or did you find the DFI directly too?

The 150+MB files contains a dfi or an installer (the expressgate_ssd 1240 version is a dfi only). The 400+MB files are the ones that contains both img and dfi.

[curaga]

Uh, well I can't download either one, the Global link won't do anything, and the China link won't start downloading at all. So I repeat my humble request for a mirror :)
Or rapidshare + PM me a link. Or something. Thanks :)

[curaga]

Got it, thanks to Kano. Now unto hacking and finding out how they fast boot..

[curaga]

Guess I touched a file accidentally - I get "Your express gate installation is incomplete. Please use the Express Gate Installer to repair the installation". So, is this the error you got? And fixed with pascal?

[Kano]

Well I found a much easier way than to recreate the version file, just use the first 32 bytes of it (the header).

dd of=version bs=1 seek=32 count=0

[drosky]

Well I found a much easier way than to recreate the version file, just use the first 32 bytes of it (the header).

dd of=version bs=1 seek=32 count=0

I don't completely understand. What is the input to the dd command?

[Kano]

The purpose it cut down the version file to the size of the header: 32 byte. If you do that in a dir without the file you get an empty one, this will not work of course.

[drosky]

The purpose it cut down the version file to the size of the header: 32 byte. If you do that in a dir without the file you get an empty one, this will not work of course.

OK, I think I understand now. If you truncate the version file to just the header, then it will automatically skip the md5 and size check because they are no longer in the file? Is that what is happening?

[Kano]

Yes, that was the purpose. If a later version only adds packages which are mentioned in the version file I have got no problem too, just a little change to my update tool ;)

[sojourner]

Yes, that was the purpose. If a later version only adds packages which are mentioned in the version file I have got no problem too, just a little change to my update tool ;)

Got my system back. Phew. Flashing the modified dfi seem to work. I changed the version to 1.2.20 to test and the updater complained that it is older than the current. Flashing was successful after that. Don't look like there is any more significant checks but I did not modify the image much in the first place. Now, to add a terminal and some other apps.

[Kano]

Did you see my easy edit script here:

http://www.phoronix.com/forums/showpost.php?p=39984&postcount=2

I updated it with the code I currently use. Maybe it is usefull for others too who directly work on the image. As it extracts every sqx file you can easyly compare things.

[curaga]

OK, that error message turned out not to be a touched file, but insufficient memory for it's checks.
My laptop only has 256mb, so I tried first with 40mb, 80mb, 128mb, but only 256mb worked. And swapped like crazy. Perhaps I can prevent this check from happening and run it with less ram allocated.

[Kano]

Well I wrote 256 mb in my other post for qemu...

[curaga]

Yes, but you didn't mention it was strictly necessary..

[piters]

Hi there,

did anyone figured out how to do the actual flashing of the ExpressGate's SSD on Linux? I asked the question to ASUS Technical Support already some time ago, and all they had to say was "upgrading ExpressGate from Linux is not possible".
Any hints where to start looking for possible hacking places? (I've P5Q Deluxe with Fedora 9)...

cheers,
Piotr

[Kano]

I guess to find out what is different compare lspci, lspci -n, lsusb from inside and outside splashtop. Inside the device must be active of course. Then you at least know what to seek for. Maybe the bios cuts one powerline to the ssd when it is not enabled - i guess it is a standard usb flash.

[SvOlli]

I've gotten my P5Q (plain) this week and started to play around with ExpressGate myself. Rather by surprise I found out, that the ExpressGate files can also by installed on a USB stick. It even works with AHCI installed, but as a downside only one of the 8 sticks I tried worked properly and even this one only work if the neighbor USB socket is unused. So my conclusion is, that this might be a timing problem. Anyone got an idea on how to display the startup messages of the linux kernel instead of the splash screen, to see where it locks up?

[Kano]

I've gotten my P5Q (plain) this week and started to play around with ExpressGate myself. Rather by surprise I found out, that the ExpressGate files can also by installed on a USB stick. It even works with AHCI installed, but as a downside only one of the 8 sticks I tried worked properly and even this one only work if the neighbor USB socket is unused. So my conclusion is, that this might be a timing problem. Anyone got an idea on how to display the startup messages of the linux kernel instead of the splash screen, to see where it locks up?

Can you start it directly from you BIOS to boot from USB? I think you could do if you bios has that cefull embedded - ce_bz has got only a kernel header, like i wrote here:

http://www.phoronix.com/forums/showthread.php?t=11800

[SvOlli]

Can you start it directly from you BIOS to boot from USB?

Yes I can. It's using the stick just like a harddisk, except that it doesn't care about the AHCI/IDE issue. Otherwise it behaves exactly like the harddisk solution. The downside is, that only one USB stick works properly. The other seven I tried display the menu, and if I select to start ExpressGate from there, I'll get the black "powered by SplashTop" booting screen and nothing more happens.

The USB also has the advantage, that you can modify the data on another computer, so it's ideal for hacking, since you don't have to boot into the development environment.

[Kano]

Thats clear, otherwise you would have to create always DFI files when you have got tested enough. But you can be sure, that when you add for example dropbear with active ssh server the system is fully compromised and not "save" as the pr wants to tell you. Adding a va* file is at least for the lite version very easy and hacked DFI images are possible too. Btw. not the ending is important, the beginning is, va-whatever.jpg would also work ;)

[azzinder]

Few days ago I purchased a P5Q3 Deluxe/WiFi-AP @n motheboard with Express Gate SSD
The problem is that all I can get to happen is that the main Express Gate menu comes up with the various applications.
If I select an application (say, Web), I do get the language and time
configuration screens for first time users, but then - nothing. The screen
goes blank, with the backlight on. I have to do a cold reboot.

I've tried a few other suggestions with PNP and different bios settings but there seems to be no change.

Tried to unplug all usb devices except mouse and keyboard. Express Gate started ok but after setting the time zone everything goes black...

Any information or help is appreciated.

[trid]

new version is out ST_ASUSEG00_HD_v1.2.8.0 i tried it on my m3n78-vm it worked,, but could not shut down,, did not show click box save settings, screen darken, the new update was for other asus lite motherboards, the new ver has web base games icon

[trid]

Few days ago I purchased a P5Q3 Deluxe/WiFi-AP @n motheboard with Express Gate SSD
The problem is that all I can get to happen is that the main Express Gate menu comes up with the various applications.
If I select an application (say, Web), I do get the language and time
configuration screens for first time users, but then - nothing. The screen
goes blank, with the backlight on. I have to do a cold reboot.

I've tried a few other suggestions with PNP and different bios settings but there seems to be no change.

Tried to unplug all usb devices except mouse and keyboard. Express Gate started ok but after setting the time zone everything goes black...

Any information or help is appreciated.

by getting that far into the express gate boot i would think you have a corrupt ssd its soldered to a usb port on motherboard or bad memory chip

[trid]

new version is out ST_ASUSEG00_HD_v1.2.8.0 i tried it on my m3n78-vm it worked,, but could not shut down,, did not show click box save settings, screen darken, the new update was for other asus lite motherboards, the new ver has web base games icon

it did show the shut down box

[trid]

for usb you need the fastest speed u can find http://www.lexar.com/jumpdrive/lightning.html is a good start i think i found at target,, u only need 512mb but the larger the size the quicker the speed, im also using 512mn satadom i little slow but goes on motherboard

[Kano]

The "web-based" games are just a link to:

http://games.splashtop.com/01/

which i wrote here some time ago:

http://www.phoronix.com/forums/showthread.php?t=11800

[XXXXX]

Few days ago I purchased a P5Q3 Deluxe/WiFi-AP @n motheboard with Express Gate SSD
The problem is that all I can get to happen is that the main Express Gate menu comes up with the various applications.
If I select an application (say, Web), I do get the language and time
configuration screens for first time users, but then - nothing. The screen
goes blank, with the backlight on. I have to do a cold reboot.

I've tried a few other suggestions with PNP and different bios settings but there seems to be no change.

Tried to unplug all usb devices except mouse and keyboard. Express Gate started ok but after setting the time zone everything goes black...

Any information or help is appreciated.

I just purchased a P5q Pro (therefore no ssd) and I see exactly the same problem precisely as you describe it.

What graphics card are you using?

[azzinder]

I just purchased a P5q Pro (therefore no ssd) and I see exactly the same problem precisely as you describe it.

What graphics card are you using?

please disabled allocated memory settings from bios chipset north bridge configuration

That way my problem SOLVED!

[apparition]

whats the exact file in /ASUS.SYS/ in one of the .sqx you edit to get 1600x1200? this max res of 1280x1024 is driving me crazy! same with those fake stretched widescreen modes! im not familiar with linux, so i dont really know :confused:

any assistance on this matter?

P5Q Pro on ASUS Express Gate Installer V1.3.3.1 for Windows 32/64bit XP & 32/64bit Vista.

[Kano]

Point c)

http://www.phoronix.com/forums/showthread.php?t=11800

[apparition]

oh thanks for the point.

for some reason, im still not getting it right. i squashed together a va-custom.sqx file which has /etc/models.d/superset/99-custom in it, and in the 99-custom file are the following lines:
export DI_HAVE_RES_DDC='yes'
export DI_HAVE_RES_LIST='800x600x24x60,1024x768x24x60,128 0x800x24x60,1280x1024x24x60,1366x768x24x60,1440x90 0x24x60,1440x1050x24x60,1600x1200x24x60,1680x1050x 24x60,1920x1080x24x60,1920x1200x24x60'

now, my expressgate/splashtop isnt even booting! :confused: what am i doing wrong?

anyone got a modded .sqx for more resolution choices?

[Kano]

When it is not booting the squashfs used is too new. I use my own distro for that (Kanotix). Also I think thats the wrong file for you, because there is is already a:

etc/models.d/P5Q_Pro

dir, so you need to put it there, superset is the fallback, that would be used with your old board (I do not own an ASUS board currently but it really seems that modding unsupported systems is more easy).

[schmola33]

I'm trying to use ExpressGate to listen to my itunes music server.
My version (actual for P5Q PRO - v1.3.3.1) allows me to make use of
<Browser> <Games> <Photo> <Chat> <Skype>
but no Music Player as mentioned here: http://splashtop.com/splashtop_applications.php

Is this general matter, or do I have to activate the application?
ExpressGate is installed on my HDD.

Did anyone actually start a wiki about hacking splashtop, or is there any step by step howto hack the img (and where do I get it?) out there i cant find?

[Legion]

oh thanks for the point.

for some reason, im still not getting it right. i squashed together a va-custom.sqx file which has /etc/models.d/superset/99-custom in it, and in the 99-custom file are the following lines:
export DI_HAVE_RES_DDC='yes'
export DI_HAVE_RES_LIST='800x600x24x60,1024x768x24x60,128 0x800x24x60,1280x1024x24x60,1366x768x24x60,1440x90 0x24x60,1440x1050x24x60,1600x1200x24x60,1680x1050x 24x60,1920x1080x24x60,1920x1200x24x60'

now, my expressgate/splashtop isnt even booting! :confused: what am i doing wrong?

anyone got a modded .sqx for more resolution choices?When it is not booting the squashfs used is too new. I use my own distro for that (Kanotix). Also I think thats the wrong file for you, because there is is already a:

etc/models.d/P5Q_Pro

dir, so you need to put it there, superset is the fallback, that would be used with your old board (I do not own an ASUS board currently but it really seems that modding unsupported systems is more easy).I have a p5q pro (bios/express gate updated as of a couple days ago) and am having the same problem. When you modify a squashfs file it wont boot. Express gate actually starts but when you click to enter the OS (like brows web as opposed to boot os) it will freeze at the asus express gate logo screen (where X should be starting).

I think that expressgate might not be mounting the files properly. If I copy the files in tact from a sqx file and re-squash it, splashtop fails to boot, even when I've done nothing to the actual data. I have ran the dd command on version so it's not an md5 thing. `file` reveals that splashtop used squashfs version 3.0 and mine is 3.1. I don't see how this would matter but it's possible that it only works with squashfs versoin 3.0. What version of squashfs-tools are you using, Kano?

[Kano]

You use a too new squashfs version, downgrade it. When squashfs it too new it will not boot.

[Legion]

You use a too new squashfs version, downgrade it. When squashfs it too new it will not boot.That works great, thanks.

Btw you don't have to link gnome-terminal to xterm. bs-boxtools contains a file /etc/bbkeys/bbkeysrc and you can just change what all the hotkeys are.

Also in some of your scripts you refer to a FILE.img, including your howto for putting it on a bootable usb. What is this FILE.img?

[Kano]

Of course you don't need to symlink it, but thats the most easy way to add a (hidden) terminal without editing a file. That even works when the md5sum file is intact as you don't have to change existing ones. If I would not have seen that file before I would not have added that symlink ;)

[calin]

I'm trying to use ExpressGate to listen to my itunes music server.
My version (actual for P5Q PRO - v1.3.3.1) allows me to make use of
<Browser> <Games> <Photo> <Chat> <Skype>
but no Music Player as mentioned here: http://splashtop.com/splashtop_applications.php

Is this general matter, or do I have to activate the application?
ExpressGate is installed on my HDD.

Did anyone actually start a wiki about hacking splashtop, or is there any step by step howto hack the img (and where do I get it?) out there i cant find?


The music player is not included in ExpressGate v1.3.3.1; I managed to find it when I used ExpressGate for Asus laptops; sorry I don't remember the version; all I did was to copy the file on my USB that has ExpressGate; for you it will be ASUS.SYS folder. The file is va-music.sqx, The music player can play only files that are stored on you computer.

[Legion]

Another question: how are you compiling drivers for splashtop?

From inside a 32bit debootstrap I've tried compiling the same kernel version that it's runign and insmod always errors insmod: cannot insert '/lib/modules/2.6.20.11/kernel/fs/reiserfs/reiserfs.ko': Invalid module format (-1): Exec format errorAlso how did you modify the screen resolution script? Even when I add more resolutions inside the actual script it wont recognize them (eg export DI_HAVE_RES_LIST). I've seen this being discussed before but never saw exactly how to do it.


A couple things I found out: You can change the firefox scripts to use a default profile and it makes it not suck, also firefox 3 (er at least iceweasel 3) isn't very hard to install and runs much better.

kde 3.1 is installed but is largely broken (konsole works). I think it might be possible to take out kde and either install a newer, more complete version of kde or use xfce4. That way apps would integrate better.

Also I think it would be cool to set up some webspace somewhere to host modified versions of splasgate. The technology that runs it is pretty cool but the default splashgate sucks IMO. It's so small/simple though that making *clean* overhalls is very easy. Eg completely removing everything associated with firefox2 and installing firefox3 or doing the same with kde3.1 (I would assume all of asus's special apps would be detected by other desktops, if not there aren't very many of them to add).

[danythebat]

Btw. it is relatively easy to add command line apps in new containers, when you just create a sqx analog to the already existing ones. Just need to figure out how to add em to the menu. Also there is a nice trick to run a root terminal: just create a new pack with rxvt or whatever you like and add a symlink to gnome-terminal. Then you just have to press ALT-F1 and you are root. No need to hack another package...

I follow your posts since long time, now I can do some experiments on my new eeebox:D and I need to know what files to add and how to create a symlink to have a root terminal in splashtop: please, could you help me?

Thanks in advance

Daniele
Rome, Italy

[unichrom]

I believe the Splashtop on the laptops are on a ROM chip. Can this be modified? What tools would I need? I would like to access my Home Server as well as Print.

[Kano]

Its internal usb storage, nothing with ROM or running from hd partition.

[pupa]

Hi guys

It's gone awfully quiet in here? :D Holidays?


On a more serious note. I have the Asus P5Q MB. I want to install the Express gate on USB stick. But ... During install the selection for other drives is blocked? Only c:\ ... is allowed

Where can I get the files required to make Splashtop work from USB stick. Can someone upload them?

The main reason is that I read somewhere that the Drive Expert functions are also available from Splashop?

Thanks

Enjoy the festive season.

[sasaman85]

I follow your guide to make Splashtop on Usb and it works fantastic. Now i want to add some apps to Splashtop like a music player, but i don't understand how i can make it. I read that some users add some programs and a gnome terminal but what i've to do? Thanks a lot for your work, it's amazing.
Happy new year to everyone
:)

[supamoe25]

Hi everyone.
i finally got my P5Q Deluxe with an EG SSD. So after a short time, the integrated PidGin Client doesn't connect to my ICQ Acc. The reason is that ICQ changed something in the protocol.
The latest Update on the Asus Website doesn't fix the problem.

So i tried to modify it by myself.

For the SSD you need the Asus Express Gate Updater (only runs in Windoze)
and an Update file.

The latest update File i found was ST_ASUSEG00_256MB_v1.3.3.1_20080815.DFI

this is an normal gZip file. Just rename and extract it. But then i got an .img file (size 262MB) wich i can't open with any application i tested

Daemon Tools / Iso Buster / UltraIso / PowerIso / IsoMagic / Virtual CloneDrive / and some Linux tools.

So i checked the MIME Type in Linux and i replies that:

m0e@VMbuntu:/media/disk# file -i ST_ASUSEG00_256MB_v1.3.3.1_20080815.img
ST_ASUSEG00_256MB_v1.3.3.1_20080815.img: application/octet-stream

so i can't figure out what kind of File this is. Can anyone help me??

BTW i asked Asus for support (was just a try! :o ) and they replied this to me (was in German so i translated it)

Dear Mr S,

you are not allowed to modifiy the Express Gate. So we can't give you any Information. The problem with the Chattool (Pidgin, which doesn't work with my ICQ account) will be forwarded to our Team in Taiwan, and we are hopefull that there will be an update soon.
-END-

First i thought the are kiddin me, i thought EG and Splashtop are OpenSource, bt after a quick search i found this:
http://lists.gpl-violations.org/pipermail/...May/001273.html

If i realy understand this it means that Asus and Splashtop violate the GPL.
1 more Reason to hack EG :D

and i want an xterm...

so long guys....:cool:

[Kano]

When you looked better you should have found my solution for this - to create new DFI

http://www.phoronix.com/forums/showpost.php?p=40759&postcount=17

Extract is even simpler. But you have to remove the header + md5sum (48 bytes in front). You should do the other step before too, to get the header - but you only need the header once. This overwrites the IMG:

zcat FILE.DFI|dd ibs=48 skip=1 obs=1M of=FILE.IMG

[supamoe25]

Oh sorry Kano... i had to read more carefull.

Will test it to night when i'm at home.

so long...

[Kano]

A little hint: when you converted the IMG to be used in Vbox for testing then you have to delete the splash.idx file before flashing it into the onboard usb storage.

[Rael]

Hi,

Can any of you post a set of instructions (step by step) so as to get the terminal working in express gate? I have read Drosky's posting but is a bit confusing to me.

Thanks in advance,

Got a terminal working in express gate. There was an xterm binary in /bin, but it didn't run due to a missing shared library. I copied over an rxvt binary from Puppy Linux. I don't yet know how to create a launcher for it in the normal panel, so I started it from xinitrc and it works great :) It's now much easier to poke around.

The file manager that is installed with express gate is brain damaged so you can only view USB storage devices, so I also copied over ROX, which works fine other than using default icons, since I didn't bother copying over all of its data.

Next project might be to get mplayer working so internet videos besides just flash can be viewed, maybe also xpdf to be able to view pdf files.

[Amarus]

This is somewhat outside the thread's scope but I have a question:
Is it somehow possible to replace Express Gate with another *nix distro?
I'm dual booting Vista (I need it for university) and Ubuntu on an Asus laptop (M51Va) and it would really be great to boot Ubuntu right away just by pressing a different button instead of using a bootloader. I know it wont be exactly an instant-on but I don't care that much.

Although I'm studying Informatics Engineering (Computer Engineering in some countries), I'm still rather noobish in the land of the *nix. But I found this thread really interesting and I'm planning to experiment around with this stuff.

Thanks in advance.

[Mangust]

The music player is not included in ExpressGate v1.3.3.1; I managed to find it when I used ExpressGate for Asus laptops; sorry I don't remember the version; all I did was to copy the file on my USB that has ExpressGate; for you it will be ASUS.SYS folder. The file is va-music.sqx, The music player can play only files that are stored on you computer.


Can someone send me this file va-music.sqx? I've searched the web but I can't get it anywhere, and music player is a good thing :)

[simw]

Hi

I'd be really grateful if someone could help me out here. I have an
M3A78-T mobo which comes with Express Gate (the non ssd type i think) which is fine, but... I currently just have Windows XP on my system drive (which Windows calls drive H for some reason) and want to install ubuntu on it (as a dual boot system pref controlled by GRUB) but I'm not sure if having express gate will cause problems. My original plan was just to uninstall express gate, install ubuntu and then reinstall express gate. Alas I can't uninstall express gate (when I try I get an error saying about an invalid Drive: C:\ - which of course is because there is no drive C. I guess the s/w is trying to uninstall some stuff from drive C expecting that's where it will be and getting confused because it's not there on my machine).

Any way, what do you think will happen if I just try and install ubuntu on the drive and ask ubuntu to sort out compressing my drive and creating any partitions it wants to in the process in the normal way?

Secondly, is there some easy way to update the express gate (the windows based update mechanism also fails because of the invalid drive error).

Any thoughts greatly appreciated.

Thanks
Sim

[Kano]

Does not matter, at all, the splash.idx file is only searched in case of hd install express gate. Be sure you use a recent version of it however because older versions expose apache networkwide on port 1080 - with full drive content.

[Forgedreality]

Hello. I just registered today because I can't seem to find any information on this anywhere, and you guys seem to have done considerable work with Expressgate.

I have an Asus P6T Deluxe motherboard, which has its ExpressGate located on the SSD.

I downloaded the latest update, and extracted the zip. I then renamed the .DFI file to .GZ and extracted that using WinAce.

I now have an .IMG file, but I am unable to do anything with it. Do I need to be running linux to actually access/modify this file? I would like to add additional screen modes, a terminal, and possibly other applications, but I'm stuck where I'm at because my version of ExpressGate appears to be quite dissimilar from the hd-based versions.

Any help anyone can provide would be GREATLY appreciated. Thank you.

[Kano]

I never had a system with direct support for Expressgate, that means that ExpressGate has for your system a currect model entry. Not sure that you can override those settings the way i used for the custom way. The IMG needs to be stripped like i showed it in another thread, also you need a relatively old squashfs tool, so basically you could use Kanotix Thorhammer to do that. Not that easy to do without Linux experience.

[Forgedreality]

I never had a system with direct support for Expressgate, that means that ExpressGate has for your system a currect model entry. Not sure that you can override those settings the way i used for the custom way. The IMG needs to be stripped like i showed it in another thread, also you need a relatively old squashfs tool, so basically you could use Kanotix Thorhammer to do that. Not that easy to do without Linux experience.

I have used Linux quite a bit, and am fairly comfortable with unix-based commands, but I don't have a linux install to work with at the moment. I was dual-booting between Ubuntu and XP for quite a while, but I ended up removing the Ubuntu OS because I didn't see much point in having XP and Ubuntu when a main use for my computer is gaming. :\ It's unfortunate because I believe it to be a far superior OS in many ways, but its lack of support is frustrating.

Anyway, assuming the .img file I have is the same format as the other version of EG, I can load the file in a hex editor and remove the first 48 bytes, correct?

I have never tried the Thorhammer distro, but I suppose I could give it a shot if there were no way to modify the files in XP.

edit - Thanks for your response btw. :P

[indianolajohn]

will this solve our problems?



Description Express Gate Source code V1.4.6.2 or earlier versions.



File Size 280.24 (MBytes) 2009/03/27 update



Download from Global China

[Darkstar2000]

This is somewhat outside the thread's scope but I have a question:
Is it somehow possible to replace Express Gate with another *nix distro?
I'm dual booting Vista (I need it for university) and Ubuntu on an Asus laptop (M51Va) and it would really be great to boot Ubuntu right away just by pressing a different button instead of using a bootloader. I know it wont be exactly an instant-on but I don't care that much.

Although I'm studying Informatics Engineering (Computer Engineering in some countries), I'm still rather noobish in the land of the *nix. But I found this thread really interesting and I'm planning to experiment around with this stuff.

Thanks in advance.

I don't think that it is out of scope and I think it's a very interesting question: Would it be possible to load a custom linux kernel that initializes all necessary hardware and then starts the /sbin/init on the given "root=/dev/sdaX"?
Nearly half of the total time to login is wasted by the BIOS (22 seconds until grub) and from then only 26 seconds for the OS itself. If only the grub bootloader would come up as fast as the Express Gate menu it would be a great improvement.

I had a closer look on the skin0000.bin file and it seems that this is the menu that is shown first. I could find many GIF pictures some strings that look like a kernel init: ":/kernel.bin initva=firefox baseva=scan". Maybe it helps digging further into this direction.

Darkstar.

[Kano]

It is no improvement, because the first menu is a fake - it is just a bootmanager, then the system boots.

[Darkstar2000]

If this is just a bootmanager is there a way to integrate my own kernel into it? Having a bootmanager 20 seconds earlier would improve a lot! I can see in skin0000.bin that it starts "kernel.bin" but I am not shure if I could just put my kernel here and load it.

[Kano]

No idea how to replace kernel, i only managed to compile extra modules against an older splashtop kernel for extra drivers.

[Darkstar2000]

I digged a little bit deeper into it and found something more. Even if the CE_BZ is not included in the windows installation anymore (only CEFULL is) it is still there compressed into CE.CEX. Just strip the first 0x3f bytes of the file and "tar -xz" the remaining part.

[Kano]

Not bad. I just added a stored header in front.

[Darkstar2000]

Not bad. I just added a stored header in front.

Thank you:) I mean I am working with linux for over 10 years but I only found out today that there is a program called "file" and a file "/usr/share/magic" with all the knowledge of how to identify files by the header...

I am not shure about the kernel.bin though. Sometimes the files in the ASUS.SYS directory look a little bit strange: security by obscurity... At the end of kernel.bin is an empty debian package structure with a control file saying:

Package: Kernel.Splashtop.ASUSEG00
Section: System_Kernel
Maintainer: DeviceVM <www.devicevm.com>
Architecture: all
Version: 1.4.6.2
FriendlyName: Kernel Image
BtId: ###BTID###
SQXSize: ###SQXSIZE###
SQXMd5sum: ###SQXMD5###
Description: Kernel binary for Splashtop ASUSEG00


If I find more details I will post them here.

[hartiberlin]

Please release an ISO file that works
with the great UnetBootin program

http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/

to get it easily
onto USB stick drives !

As the Splashtop is now also Open Source
there should be no legal problem.

Many thanks.

Regards, Stefan.

[Darkstar2000]

Please release an ISO file that works
with the great UnetBootin program

http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/

to get it easily
onto USB stick drives !

As the Splashtop is now also Open Source
there should be no legal problem.

Many thanks.

Regards, Stefan.

Hi Stefan,
I am not shure what you want. There is already a very good instruction of how to install Splashtop on an USB stick.

For me the system is only of interest, because it is partly integrated into my systems BIOS (Asus P5N7A-VM) and this could be a way to speed up the startup time drastically. For me it would be totally enough if I would have control over the bootloader (CEFULL) but so far I have no idea how to get access to it. Maybe somebody with goot disassembler knowledge could help out. This bootloader can already start a kernel from an NTFS paritition with (I guess) a big rootfs system that then loads all the other modules. If you want to have a nice and small Linux distribution that boots from an USB stick just choose one, there are already many out there.

Regards Darkstar.

[Darkstar2000]

Hi,
I managed to start my own linux system from ExpressGate with the kexec program and it works without problems. I just compiled a statically linked kexec (because I have no SDK and the executable I tried didn't work) and put it into a bs-aaa_kexec.sqx. The "aaa" makes shure that it is loaded first after the kernel. Then I copied my kernel and initrd file to a folder on the NTFS partition and executed following commands:

kexec --load /mnt/dvmdrive_root/linux/vmlinuz --append="root=UUID=XXX ro vga=791 pci=nobios pnpbios=off" --initrd "/mnt/dvmdrive_root/linux/initrd.img --console-vga
kexec -e

At first I can not see any output, but after a while my Ubuntu login screen is shown. All in all from power switch to ubuntu login screen it saves me around 10 seconds. Unfortunately a klick on one of the icons on the ExpressGate screen is still necesarry.

At least a first start...

[Kano]

Thats really tricky, never used kexec before.

[Darkstar2000]

Me too, but since I installed it on my Ubuntu 9.04 it always restarts by loading the kernel with kexec, which is usually not what I want as I need a real restart when I want to boot into Express Gate...

Does anybody know how to load a kernel file with a disassembler? It shouldn't be too hard to find out how the CEFULL is loaded and if it can be replaced by a standard linux kernel. This would really be a great thing.

[Kano]

I think that ce(_bz) is inside the bios on your system.

[Darkstar2000]

I also think that the BIOS part initializes the hardware so far, that it can read and execute the CEFULL bootloader. Which is already pretty much as the file is on a NTFS partition. As the same data can also be executed if you add a header similar to a normal linux kernel I think it should be possible to disassemble and understand it so far, that it can be patched to always start the first menu entry. Maybe this is even possible by changing only the menu file itself (e.g. 00de.bin). I think I will just write an email to them asking for information about the bootloader and the possibility to load an alternative kernel.

[Kano]

Try something else: remove all ce* files from hd, i don't think that will matter.

[Darkstar2000]

Try something else: remove all ce* files from hd, i don't think that will matter.
Nope, if I remove CEFULL there is an error message without any graphical menu.

[Kano]

Ah, thats interesting. Maybe therefore the restriction that ahci is not allowed. You could try loading ce_bz with another loader and enable ahci. Maybe you could replace cefull by another workload like grub.

[Darkstar2000]

Ah, thats interesting. Maybe therefore the restriction that ahci is not allowed. You could try loading ce_bz with another loader and enable ahci. Maybe you could replace cefull by another workload like grub.

Thats exactly what I would like to do, but that is why I could need some help from a disassembler specialist: If cefull can be loaded with a header from a linux kernel it has to be possible to see what happens when a menu entry is chosen. A first step would be to skip the menu part and directly jump to that position.

BTW: I think I am getting a feeling of what is included in the menu files *.idx and *.bin: the idx-file holds the indexes of the indexes in the index-table in the corresponding bin-file: 10000010.*

idx@0x00000000: 0x28010000
bin@0x00000128: 0x3c070000
bin@0x0000073c: "...../kernel.bin "
and so on for the rest of the menu entrys and similar for the included gifs.

[Kano]

I never analized it that much, i only wrote a script to extract the gifs + replace em with smaller ones. Maybe you saw that too.