First of all im from sweden and my english spelling may not be the best.

I bought my 704 for about 2 mounth ago and I like it alot.
I also own a Gmini 400.
I was woundering if someone is interested of creating some easy apps to the 704 like there is for the gmini 400. go to www.archopen.org for more info.
I understand that this is not something that you can create just like that and that it takes some time, but i thing it could be verry cool if anyone is interested. Archopen is not planing to do something about the 704 right now as they have a lot of other tings on there mind.

All the apps for the Gmini 400 is created with c++ and I have no ide how it works but maybe someone here on this forum can help me.

A lot of ppl have complaind about that the plugins is expensive and they would like a crack or more like a keygen thet can create the code to enabel the cinema and podcast plugins.

If you have some thing that you like to have on your 704wifi or 704TV please post it here or if you can help with developing ,please reply.

And sorry for my spelling.

Try to search on the forum, some people are trying to hack the gen4 units, but they have some problems finding an hole in the code (if I remember).

Thanks.
I also wounderd if anyone have tried to open there 704Wifi.
I would like some pictures of the elektronic devices insided.
I am interested in if you can find out what processor it contains and the internal ram memory.

Best /Exildur

Ok did not help me but thanks anyway.
I just added a post on the rockbox site and asked if they could help us crack this thing and if they could create a rockbox firmware.

Does somebody know if we have made any progress in hacking the original firmware yet?
Can´t find anything about it on this site or anywere else.

I have opened my 704WiFi several times but for adding additional hardware,
other than that it's nothing mysterious that Archos uses the Texas Instruments Arm processors for all it's products. Her the link for the Chip
http://www.ti.com/corp/docs/landing/dav ... HBX_OU=50+
and if you are going to copy it well the entire circuit comes from TI and not Archos all they did was produce there own board to control cost. TI exact circuit Schematics, that is the way it is for all Embedded developers because the Chip is not like an intell or AMD CPU, the Davinci Arm Processor is a System on a chip that has a whole mother board of periphery in one chip excluding the RAM and HD & WiFi 802.11G hardware. All Kernel and source code is found at TI as well GNU, The 704WiFi is a complete open source Linux platform. if you did not know then well all the apps that Archos employs are based on open source code from Ubuntu all the class functions are identical what you see is Archos window dressing........ it's hardly worth the challenge to hack? the only interesting thing that Archos uses is a proprietary stream lined bitmap class converter
because the Circuit does not use a Video Engine processor like ATI or Nvidia using openGL or DirecX Bitmap processing ..... Have fun! ;-)

thanks a lot.
That sure anserwed my question. :D.

TJ - what hardware have you added, or was it just replacement parts ??

So is there no way we can stop the Archos GUI loading and putting Gnome or KDE or suchlike on the unit if it's just running uBuntu under the skin ??

Hmm, That realy sounds interesting.
Worked with ubuntu earlier and it´s a very easy linux system.
I know that ppl is working on how to try bypass the archos firmware but i dont thing they have got anyware with it. So far there have only been an exploit made to earier devices,
Anyone here hwo tried to make an exploit to the 704 yet?

qtopia looks realy good on 604/605
would be great if it could be run on the 704 as well.
is it eaven possible to port to the 704 device

If it works on the 604wifi, and it does, I can't think of any reason for it not to work on the 704. Having said that, I haven't tried it myself.

I am trying right now to connect to the 704 using putty but with no luck.
I can´t type anything when putty connects to the 704,
All I get is "access denied" for some reason when I try to enter openpma as password.


Im a windows user by the way.
Have another computer with linux on, but it should not matter right?

the password is openPMA with capital letters for "PMA"

Hi Exildur,

here's another 704 user...
It's my first Archos, so I'm not familiar with openpma from earlier
experiences.
Since I got everything to work on the 704 I'm already pretty much sure
that binary-wise everything's working, no extra make for 704 necessary...

In order to make fiat's (praise him!) original GFT (in order to ssh with
putty into 704) work you need the library libcrypto.so.0.9.7 from
fiat's kitchensink-archive.
Edit: hmm seems like fiat has left, all the archos content on remix.net is gone - but - u can alo take the libcrypto.so.0.9.7 from the openpma-archive(in the img-file in /usr/lib )

Add that to the arcwelder directory on the 704(Data/arcwelder).
Additionally u have to modify the original install-script.
Normally, dynamic link libraries are searched only in specific locations.
For the provided sshd this seems to be taken from the LD_LIBRARY_PATH Environment Variable.
So, before calling the sshd in the install script we have to set the LD_LIBRARY_PATH to include the /tmp/ssh directory.
So The install script can look like this:
#!/bin/bash

mkdir /tmp/ssh/
mkdir /tmp/empty
chmod 755 /tmp/empty
cp /mnt/data/Data/arcwelder/* /tmp/ssh/
cd /tmp/ssh
chmod 755 *
chmod 4711 ssh-keysign
chmod 600 /tmp/ssh/*_key
chmod 600 /tmp/ssh/authorized_keys
chmod 644 /tmp/ssh/*.pub
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/tmp/ssh:${LD_LIBRARY_PATH}
/tmp/ssh/sshd -f /tmp/ssh/sshd_config

Important: if u edit the install script from a non-Unix(Windows) PC
make sure u write the install script in UNix format otherwise it will not
run correctly.

The above(providing the library and modifying the install script) would be unnecessary if a statically linked sshd would exist(don't knw, haven't seen one...). This would mean the library is built into the sshd executable.

With the modified install script I got sshd and putty to work.

The next step was to get openpma to work.
My current understanding is, that openpma-ng(from bubu) does not work out of the box since it will copy the whole root-fs into a dir on /mnt/system.
On my 704 with 1.7.22 I have only 61 MB free space.
If I call openpma-ng.sh it will fill up the whole space there and openpma
will not run. Tried to get this confirmed by the community, but nobody could give me an answer...

I got it running by creating an additional partition on the FAT32 space.
Used Acronis Disk Director for that - shrinked the FAT32 partition and created an ext3 partition in the free space.
I mounted that on /mnt/system/openpma-ng.
Now the copy of root-fs will copy onto this new partition and will finish completely. After the chown on /home/nobody openma now came up.

Info here: I do not run the openpma-ng-sh through the GFT-way.
Instaed I do the arcwelder GFT, log on through putty and then execute
openpma-ng from the shell. It will come back after it has finished.
You then can check the remounts(do an df -k and it'll show all the
filesystems) and do the chown fix on /home/nobody.
After that exit the shell, on the Archos exit the file server mode, go to
file browser and execute the openpma-ng.pdf (in Info).

What I haven't tried so far: instead of the partitioning work, just use
a directory on the FAT32 partition.
You then will have to change the openpma-ng script to point the
OPENPMA_NG_ROOTDIR to that directory.
Don't know if this will work, since the remounting of the root-fs might
need an ext3 FS (I understood it that way... anybody??).

But don't expect too much of the openpma...
Right now I see this more as an exciting learning field...
I finally came up with the thought 'the 704 is really a nice product(if u didn't get a lemon) and is actually doing everything I need...'.

Hope this is of some help - would like to exchange the knowledge with you if you get any news...

putty dossent allow me to right anything and now i cant even get at connection. checked it over and over again but with no luck.

Then i tried another thinh. Tought that it might work if I had an earyer version on the firmware and I successfully managed to downgrade my 704Wifi from ver. 1.7.22 to 1.7.20
I downloded the firmware 1.7.20.
When the 704 is booting up you hold the tv/lcd bottom and an new vindows will appear.
Then copy the old firware to the 04 and press the screen for it to search for new firmware.
The firmware starts to install and a minute later it has complet after you restart it.
Calibrate the screen and go to settings and click on system.
You can now see that you have the old firmware

If you login to archos hompage it says that downgrade will not be possible. :badgrin:

Thanks Raybee i will try this and hopefully make it work.
It was so mutch easyer to start hacks on the archos gmini when archopen came out with medios. to bad it has to be so mutch trubble to get a working hack on this machine. otherwise I like the 04 to but I still thinks it´s missing a lot of things like flash support and its not so verry good handeling coocies eather.

Thanks for your support.

I just tried to put OPENPMA on FAT32 partition and now I can give myself the answer: nope, does not work.

Problem is: openpma-ng.sh first 'over'-mounts bin directory from the
archive. So we are mounting a vfat FS to /bin.
This will cause to loose all softlinks in that directory(FAT does not support
softlinks).
Since mount is a softlink to busybox, mount at that point will not exist and the
rest of the openpma-ng.sh script fails.

So we definitely need an FS that supports softlinks to store our
openpma distribution on.

Exildur: since you are on 1.7.20, when u get ssh to work, can u do a df -k and post the result ?
On mine df -k returns with:
Filesystem 1k-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/ram0 28760 28760 0 100% /
/dev/hda1 78013648 1419776 76593872 2% /mnt/data
/dev/hda2 95807 29073 61787 32% /mnt/system
/dev/loop0 37112 37112 0 100% /opt


If there would be any other way to resize the /dev/hda2 (we need 108MB free space I believe), we would not need to create the extra partition.

Raybee
I'm not following right now.
you mentioned df -k,
Have not worked with that. I am still new with this hacking thing and don't understand a lot of things.
And I have still not got my hand on Libcrypto.so.0.9.7
Would be of great help if you had a link to where i can download.Linux cant open the openpma-archive

ssh is driving me crazy. Now i got a connection and when I suppose to enter openPMA as password the putty window is still empty.
I have read every guide there is to find in this forum and still it wont work.
This is on my other computer that is running Ubuntu Linux where i get the connection in putty.

HI Exildur,

ok I try ...

first get the following arcwelder archive:
http://rapidshare.com/files/83423917/arcwelder.rar

You'll need winrar to unpack(for instance from here: http://www.download.com/WinRAR/3000-225 ... 45708.html).

This arcwelder is based on the official one(1.0) with the additional
libcrypto.so.0.9.7 and the modified install script.
This one works on my 704.

Connect 704 to PC via USB.
Copy content of arcwelder archive to 704\Data(so in Data, there will be an arcwelder directory).
Disconnect 704.


Taken from http://code.google.com/p/arcwelder :

1. Connect to a wifi network
2. From the top level of the avos app, goto your wireless settings again, this time you should see your IP address and other network configuration information. Scroll to the bottom and select Wireless File Server..
3. Setup your Samba info as you like, but select the Password setting to bring up the keyboard UI.
4. Change the password to "1;/bin/sh -x /mnt/data/Data/arcwelder/install 1>/mnt/data/Data/stdout.txt 2>/mnt/data/Data/stderr.txt" , include the quotes, that's important
5. Click/Run Enable File Server
6. After a couple seconds, the UI will notify you that the fileserver has started, that means your command has run.

Taken from
http://code.google.com/p/arcwelder/wiki ... with_Putty :

1. Download and Install Putty (from here: http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/)
2. Start PuttyGen. Load id_arcwelder(from arcwelder archive) and then Save private key (confirm saving without passphrase) to any location you want (Documents for example). Name it id_arcwelder.ppk.
3. Start Putty. Select Connection-SSH-Auth. Click on Browse in the Authentication parameters section and load your private key (id_arcwelder.ppk)
4. Switch back to Session and enter Archos IP address as Host Name. Click Open.
5. Putty should open login session so login as root
6. Wait few moments until BusyBox appears
7. You're in!

You're in.

Special note from me:
In some cases I could not connect with putty after the first time running the file server(install command).
Then Shutdown fileserver, run fileserver and try again.
If it still doesn't work, shutdown the fileserver, connect the 704 to USB and check the file 704\Data\stderr.txt.
This then should contain some error messages.

Hope this will do.


Another note:
the df is not important for connecting.
When you are able to connect please run this command(df -k) to check the free space on your filesystems. Thats's of interest to me to see if
your 704 has a different size of the file systems.

I downloaded arcwelder and made a copy to data on 704 then made the id_arcwelder.ppk and browsed it in putty. but still when i try to enter my ip adress to the 704 i get connection refused from putty.
I am using only my ip adress and port number is 22.
should I use a different port number.
I saw that utelnet is using 1023 as portnumber and
shh -p 1023 root@(archos ip) as host name

connected the 704 after and had a look at stderr.txt after I got the connection refused error and this is what i found
/bin/sh: Can't open mnt/data/Data/arcwelder/install