Customised HDF file released

All installed ok for me.
It did prompt for me to format the hdd when I booted up however, which was concerning, but i cancelled it and it was fine.
I had a similar experience with the Format HDD prompt. I think it may possibly be linked to a minor problem with the mdev script which af123 knows about already.
Any chance we can have a more detailed description on hummypkg of what the tools are/can be used for as I noticed there are quite a few changes since the original post.
Yes, exact details of what each package contains would be good. For instance , I noticed that the Network utilities package duplicates the ifconfig, route, and hostname commands which already exist in the busybox binary.
Also regarding the auto-update issue, can we not just change the F/w version to a higher value such as v10.01 - Humax will never get this high themselves and the auto-update should fail as their version would be less than v10. This also makes sense as there is no restriction on downgrading.
The custom firmware has only modded the publicly licensed linux busybox OS. I believe the firmware version is coded somewhere in the Humax binaries, and so would not be quite so easy to change.
 
Heads Up. According to the DTG Website, the OTA update (v1.02.07) will resume Wednesday 20th June until Friday 22nd June.
 
Yes, exact details of what each package contains would be good. For instance , I noticed that the Network utilities package duplicates the ifconfig, route, and hostname commands which already exist in the busybox binary.

That makes sense. I will add a way of seeing what's in each package via the website. The package description is already on there but I may have been a bit terse when filling the field in.

The custom firmware has only modded the publicly licensed linux busybox OS. I believe the firmware version is coded somewhere in the Humax binaries, and so would not be quite so easy to change.

Exactly right. The HDR differs from earlier boxes (including the HD) in that the entire root filesystem is in a single squashfs archive (earlier boxes split it out into sections which is why the modified Foxsat updates were so small), but I've only modified bits of the OS. The Humax software is a single large binary and the version number is probably embedded somewhere in there.
 
All installed ok for me.
It did prompt for me to format the hdd when I booted up however, which was concerning, but i cancelled it and it was fine.

I have seen that happen once. If you do see the error, then it's safest to power off and back on again after cancelling. I think it usually means that one of the filesystems hasn't mounted properly. As Raydon said, it's probably related to not supporting hot plug of ext3 devices. The next release will fix it.
 
I'll hard reboot it tonight. Didn't mess with it last night and it crashed once while watching an mp4 vid and then twice just watching tv!
 
I'm going to be doing some updates to the custom HDF and the package repository over this weekend. I'm consolidating what's been done so far, improving package information, fixing bugs and restructuring things a bit. I'll release an updated HDF for both the HDR and HD next week.

Some of the packages that are there now will go away to be replaced by a new busybox package and then I'll concentrate on adding more functionality to the box. Starting with a media server including Youtube access followed by get_iplayer to allow downloading of iplayer content for later viewing.
 
Is there any resource for the uninitiated to learn what can be done with the packages. I guess more along the how do you use them. This is from someone who does not know what telneting is.
 
Is there any resource for the uninitiated to learn what can be done with the packages. I guess more along the how do you use them. This is from someone who does not know what telneting is.

There will be but we're just starting to work out what's possible. At the moment everything's still a work in progress and therefore a bit unstable and aimed squarely at developers. With the next release I plan to write up a simple getting started guide with recommended packages etc. and we can add step by step instructions for achieving certain things.

Give it a few weeks and it should be more accessible to end users.
 
Glad to hear that. I really tempted to "play" but need a step-by-step guide. I will wait with baited breath!
 
Ok - let's see if anyone else has any luck.. You could try loading a standard Humax upgrade image from their web site using the same method. Humax have said in the past that some memory sticks don't work.
Lets just clear up the terminology used here for clarity, a memory stick is Computer or Laptop memory, whereas a USB flash drive is the correct terminology to use in this instance.
 
I would call the former a stick of memory and am perfectly happy to refer to a USB memory stick. ;)
 
Actually, a "Memory Stick" is a removable flash memory card format, launched by Sony in October 1998.:cool:
 
Really? We're debating what to call a memory stick/USB thumb drive?? You can't plug anything else in to the hd/HDR anyway! Lol
I for one have never called dimm memory a memory stick. Sure it's a stick of memory, but it's called Dimm/Dimm2/Dimm3..
In the same vein you don't call a monitor a tv screen or a desktop a laptop... Lol
 
HOWTO make use of virtual disk.
An example of how to use some of the great code released by af123.

If there are any recordings you want copied off the humax simply copy them to the virtual disk mounted in the /media file system (SD recordings will be decrypted). Then on your pc run a script to copy the files from the virtual disk, deleting when successfully uploaded and move the originals to an archived folder.

On my HDR I have created a directory ARCHIVED in the normal recording filesystem.

Here's the parameters for my script:
$XFER="/media/ext3/"; #path to the media with decoded recordings
$RECORDINGS="/mnt/hd2/My Video/"; #path to original recording
$UPLD="intransit/";#path to holding area
$DONE="edit/";#when successfully uploaded move here
$ARCHIVED="/mnt/hd2/My Video/ARCHIVED/";#move files successfully uploaded to here

What it does
It checks files in the $XFER directory for files which are the same name and size as ones in the $RECORDINGS directory (don't want to copy files that haven't successfully been copied by the HUMAX copy operation. When uploaded successfully the recording in the $XFER will be deleted and the ones in the $RECORDINGS directory will be moved to the $ARCHIVED directory for manual deletion on the HUMAX.

Currently using scp for copy (seems faster than rsync, 4x on my network). I'm using Linux but it should work on windows (may require a few tweaks).

Once we get md5sum for the humax I'll add that into script to check for successful transfers rather than just file sizes.

Code:
#!/usr/bin/perl

$HUMAX="root\@humax";
$XFER="/media/ext3/"; #path to the media with decoded recordings
$RECORDINGS="/mnt/hd2/My Video/"; #path to original recording
$UPLD="intransit/";#path to holding area
$DONE="edit/";#when successfully uploaded move here
$SSH="ssh $HUMAX";#command to execute secure shell to HUMAX box
$SCP="scp $HUMAX:";#command to copy using scp from HUMAX box
$ARCHIVED="/mnt/hd2/My Video/ARCHIVED/";#move files successfully uploaded to here

#########################
### DO NOT EDIT BELOW ###
#########################

if ( $ARGV[0]=~ "-help" ){
  print <<EOF;
This purpose of this script it to archive recordings off the HDR FOX T2
that have been sucessfully copied to the archive media $XFER directory.

The script checks that the files in the $XFER directory are also located
somewhere in the $RECORDINGS directory (main directory where recording
are stored).

Upon sucessfully copying of the files in the $XFER directory the files
are deleted and the files on the main video library $RECORDINGS are
moved to the $ARCHIVED directory.

EOF
}

print "\nLook to see what has been uploaded so far ...\n";
open(INTRANSIT,"find \"$UPLD\" -name \"*.ts\" -exec ls -l {} \\; |");
while(<INTRANSIT>){
  chomp;
  $fn = substr($_,index($_,$UPLD)+length($UPLD));
  split;
  $uploaded{$fn}=@_[4];
  print $fn," of size : $uploaded{$fn}\n";
}
close INTRANSIT;

print "\nLook to see what's new on box ...\n";
open(NEW,"$SSH 'find \"$XFER\" -name \"*.ts\"'|");
while(<NEW>){
  chomp;
  $fn=substr($_,length($XFER));
  print $fn,"\n";
  $new{$fn}=-1;
}
close NEW;

print "\nGet sizes of new files...\n";
foreach $f (keys %new){
  open(SZ,"$SSH 'ls -l \"$XFER".$f."\"'|");
  while(<SZ>){
    if($_ =~ $f){split;$new{$f}=@_[4]};
  }
  print "$f size = $new{$f}\n";
}

print "\nFound new files, let's check if there complete...\n";
open(ALL,"$SSH 'find \"$RECORDINGS\" -name \"*.ts\"'|");
while(<ALL>){
  chomp;
  $exists{$_}=$_;
}
close ALL;
foreach $f (keys %exists){
  foreach $n (keys %new){
    if($f =~ $n){
      print "$n found, check sizes ... ";
      open(SZ,"$SSH 'ls -l \"".$exists{$f}."\"'|");
      while(<SZ>){
        if($_ =~ $n){
          split;
          $exists{$f}=@_[4];
          print "its size is :: $exists{$f}";
        }
      }
      print "\n";
      if($new{$n} == $exists{$f}){
        print "\nCheck $n uploaded and if so delete off humax...\n";
        if($new{$n} == $uploaded{$n}){
          print "Removing $n and archiving on humax...\n";
          system "$SSH 'rm -f \"".$XFER.substr($n,0,length($n)-2)."\"*'\n";
          system "$SSH 'mv -f \"".substr($f,0,length($f)-2)."\"* \"$ARCHIVED\"'\n";
          system "mv -f \"".$UPLD.substr($n,0,length($n)-2)."\"* $DONE\n";
        }else{
          print "\nUpload from humax :: $n\n";
          system "$SCP'\"$XFER$n\"' $UPLD";
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

print "All done...\n";
exit 0;
 
Excelent work, however the ultimate goal, which others are working on is to keep them on the box, and allow them to be viewed via a media server. I wonder what happens if we move the files out of the recording directory to another file system (to decrypt them) and then copy them back to the original location - so they can easily be viewed on the humax box and also streamed via a media server??????
 
Excelent work, however the ultimate goal, which others are working on is to keep them on the box, and allow them to be viewed via a media server.

All you have to do to achieve that is create a virtual disk and copy the recordings you want across to that disk. They will be decrypted on the way and then as long as you have a media server, they can be streamed straight across the network to another device.

I've started to work on packaging a couple of different media servers, but the good weather means I'm not spending much time on it at the moment.
 
Update HDF files and package repository:

I've updated the HDR_FOX_T2_upgrade.hdf file and added HD_FOT_T2_upgrade.hdf (see first post in thread for latest links). These new packages contain a number of bug fixes so that, for example, external drives formatted with ext3 now work properly.

The package repository has been restructured too and a number of new packages have been added. The old HDF image won't be able to retrieve packages from the new repository.

If you've previously tried the customised HDF file then I recommend that you remove the contents of /mnt/hd2/mod and update with this new one. Once updated, the first package you should probably install is busybox which installs a small binary providing most of the missing user commands that you will want, including gzip, tar, a pager (more/less) and simple vi clone (full vim packages are available if you prefer which take more memory but have much more functionality). I also find ldd & file quite useful.

It's still early days so I suggest you only use these updates if you are technical with some Linux or other UNIX experience. If you don't understand what a package does by the name/google then you don't want it :)

On the other hand, please try af123-webif and build on it if you can!
 
Excelent work, however the ultimate goal, which others are working on is to keep them on the box, and allow them to be viewed via a media server.
What I've done allows me to move the file from the humax to another more powerful system which can stream the recordings back to the humax and becomes a larger archive. The humax only has 500G. 1TB pc disks are < £40, 2TB ~ £60.

I don't think the humax is a reliable media server, it gets switched off often when it shouldn't, forget to select TV and press power off, down goes the humax,

Now a patch to disable the off function would be good.
 
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