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Custom Droid X ROMs starting to break loose, eFuse be damned
Despite Motorola's best intentions to the contrary, the Droid X has been making steady progress toward viable custom ROMs, first with root access, then with a recovery method... and now, at long last, we're starting to get the first few glimpses at legit cooked firmware. The two options we're seeing so far are Sapphire -- originally designed for the Droid of old -- and a so-called "FlyX" ROM from longtime contributor Birdman. In both cases, the benefits of eschewing Motorola's standard builds are pretty obvious: you get Froyo, root, and a host of apps and capabilities preferred by the superuser crowd like surcharge-free mobile hotspot access. The process is a little involved to get these bad boys installed at this point, but with time, we're willing to bet it becomes a pretty painless endeavor. Follow the break for a quick video of Sapphire booting into stock Froyo on the X -- a tantalizing sight, indeed. [Thanks, Clift]
Motorola responds to Droid X bootloader controversy, says eFuse isn't there to break the phone
There's been a lot of chatter going around the interwebs in the past 24 hours about the Droid X's exceptionally well-locked bootloader -- a situation that is going to make running custom ROMs considerably more difficult (bordering on impossible) compared to your average HTC. Specifically, the culprit is said to be a technology known as eFuse -- developed by IBM several years ago -- which allows circuits to be physically altered at the silicon level on demand. Thing is, the term "eFuse" has taken on an unrelated meaning this week, with My Droid World claiming that some chip inside the Droid X is commanded to "blow the fuse" if it's unable to verify the stock bootloader, which permanently bricks the phone. It amounts to a really, really hard slap on the wrist for anyone trying to hack, say, Sense or stock Froyo onto it. Considering IBM's historically non-nefarious usage of the term "eFuse," we suspected something was amiss here, so we reached out to Motorola for an explanation. Read on to see what we got back.
HTC HD2 caught running Android 2.1 and Ubuntu with touchscreen enabled (video)
Still clinging on to your HTC HD2? Good on ya, cos this WinMo slate's about to last you a wee bit longer -- team HTC Linux has recently made a breakthrough with getting the touchscreen to talk to the HaRET Linux bootloader. In other words, us mere mortals can finally use Linux variants like Android and Ubuntu on the HD2 the way it's meant to be, although we're apparently still a few bugs away from a stable release. Until then, enjoy the techno-fueled video demo after the break. [Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Motorola Milestone gets close to custom ROMs -- even without an unlocked bootloader
Motorola Milestone owners still haven't managed to get the phone's bootloader unlocked, making custom Android ROMs (Froyo, for example) a whole heck of a lot more difficult -- but not impossible. It seems that the community is getting close to successfully employing a "kexec" solution, meaning a new kernel would be executed on top of the stock one without rebooting -- and from there, fully customized builds are basically a shoo-in. Motorola doesn't seem to be budging on a proper bootloader unlock, so it's good to see everyone involved is coming up on a workable alternative. [Thanks, Chris T.]
Linux (almost) hits the Xbox 360, thanks to XeLL boot loader
For those Xbox 360 peeps that've been eyeing the PlayStation 3's Linux happenings jealously, their time is nearly at hand. Working hand in hand with the hypervisor exploit on kernel 4532 and 4548 Xboxen (sorry kernel 4552 kids, you're still out of luck) the XeLL boot loader does all the heavy lifting getting Linux to boot on the 360, minus a working Linux distro to actually run on top of it all. But with XeLL up and running, getting a distro together shouldn't be much trouble, and the 360 should be able to finally offer up niceties that the PS3 has been touting in a legitimate manner since day one.
Drives that go 'poof' in the night
While revving up a new MacBook Pro and pondering how to get a persistent bootloader, I inadvertently did something dumb: I disconnected a Firewire drive from my laptop while it was at the EFI boot screen. As sometimes is the case, dumbness led to knowledge -- I had never seen the drive 'poof' effect on the startup chooser screen, and I have to say I was pleased at the little 'slide' as the remaining drives shifted over to take up the space. Nice fit and finish there.
A bootloader for the rest of us
Chalk this one up to a colleague's complaining. One of my cohorts was the mostly-happy recipient of a shiny MacBook Pro today, and he was setting up Boot Camp (with the eventual intent of configuring Linux as well as OS X & Windows) and griping that he wanted to see the EFI bootloader on every restart. "What's wrong with holding down the option key?" we asked him. "Nah," he said, "I want it to ask me each time. I reboot so infrequently, chances are when I do it's because I'm switching OSes." Or something like that. I tend to tune out when people complain; it helps get through the IT day, if you know what I mean.Well, I couldn't let the challenge sit unsolved, so here's one option for eliminating Option: the rEFIt project. This open-source alternative bootloader for Intel Macs will allow you to choose between your installed OSen at boot time, among other helpful features (and was mentioned in the comments to a TUAW post back in August). I'll get my colleague to install it and make sure it doesn't cause his MBP to detonate nearby cable modems or anything else antisocial.
First-ever PSP modchip now comes with BIOS solution
About a week ago, the very first hardware PSP modchip came out, called Undiluted Platinum. However, it didn't feature a BIOS upgrade at the time. Now, the modding solution is totally complete. If you're willing to spend $200 on the modchip and use a microscope to do the installation, go ahead. Personally, I'd rather get the pricey, but more-likely-to-work $450 pre-installed PSP. The BIOS allows you to have all the functionality of the most current firmware, with the flexibility to run homebrew. It also has "ultra reliable" UMD emulation, which allows users to run games from Memory Stick, even games that need the newest firmware. Heck, you can even used compressed ISO files so that you can squeeze more burned games to your system. Best of all: if you ever brick your PSP, you can use the recovery menu of the Epsilon BIOS to get your baby back and running.One aspect about the Epsilon BIOS that is highly touted is the fact that its "bootloader" always runs before the real firmware. That way, every protection attempt by Sony in the future will be useless, theoretically, on a modded system. I guess that's the way it should be, considering how much money you've spent on it. Personally, I'd rather just buy some real games, and if I want to hassle with homebrew, I'll trust the software route instead. Spending so much money to avoid spending money on games seems a little silly, don't you think?[Via Maxconsole][Thanks, steve!]
