Archos Releases Dev Edition Firmware For Tablets

Charbax writes "While Archos' current 'Archos 5 Internet Tablet with Android' is a 4.8" WVGA tablet that runs Android 1.5 (and perhaps 2.0 soon with the full Google Marketplace Experience), users of last year's 4.8" and 7" Archos Linux tablets have been complaining that Archos' firmware updates to its proprietary, embedded Linux OS were too infrequent, and added too little of the requested functionality. Under pressure from hackers demonstrating jailbreak methods, Archos has just now officially released (PDF) the open-source Special Developer Edition firmware based on Angstrom Linux, generated from a customized, open embedded build for last year's Archos 5 and 7 Internet Media tablets. If many talented developers join the community of Archos hackers to make software for this new Archos SDE firmware, then Android, Angstrom Linux, Maemo Mer, Qt and Ubuntu Linux could be expected to run smoothly on it soon. That could make it the ultimate pocket Linux Internet tablet for Linux hackers. Installing Archos' new SDE firmware permanently disables DRM playback and voids the warranty."

Comments

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Imagine you work at Archos:

=============

Archos Tech Support, Monday, November 30th

ATS: Hello, this is Archos Tech support, how can I assist you today?
Customer: Uh, hi. I need to have my Archos tablet RMA'd. It's not working.
ATS: We can help you with that. Can you describe the nature of the failure?
Customer: Yeah, I was fiddling around with this kool software package, I mean my friend was messing with this software for my tablet. and I, er... he did something and now it doesn't work! The screen isn't showing up! I demand a replacement

=============

It makes sense.

Archos 5 page

[SEWilco]

For those unfamiliar with it, here is the Archos 5 home page, and the Wikipedia page. Hmm.. what's this about Amazon stopping sales?

Re:Why?

[Buzz_Light]

If you read about the details of the SDE firmware update, it flash-locks the boot0 and boot1 (bootstrap stages) sections of flash, as well as a recovery kernel. So you there is nothing you can do while running the SDE firmware that will permanently brick your Archos device.

Removing the DRM makes sense, and good riddance, says I! But saying it voids your warranty seems like a cop-out to me, especially since this generation has had a pretty high failure rate.

Archos 5 IT and IMT are different

[Buzz_Light]

It's important to point out that there is a difference between the Archos 5 Internet Tablet (IT) and the Archos 5 Internet Media Tablet (IMT). The Archos 5 IT is the seventh generation and is the device that runs Android natively. This SDE firmware has not been released for that generation. This Special Developers Firmware was only released for the sixth generation, their older hardware.

Somebody in Archos marketing should definitely be fired.

Re:Why?

[mrsteveman1]

No it doesn't, and this is the dumbing down of the consumer electronic industry. Letting companies get away with denying warranty service because of software changes is absurd. There are ways to ensure the device isn't totally screwed just because the software got tampered with, and many other modern devices support restoring software independent of its current state.

So in reality, the exchange should go like this:

"My device doesn't work"

"Did you tamper with it? Can you restore the original software with the tools we provided? Do that and call us back. If it still doesn't work we'll replace or service it."

Archos is not that good anyway; go with Nokia

[TejWC]

I had an Achros 605 and a Nokia N810. I would say that as an end user, the N810 was much better.

First of all Archos mislead me into thinking all I had to do for my 605 was just download a plugin to play h.264 movies. However, it turned out, you had to actually pay for that plug-in (yeah, I should have done the research, but I didn't think they would charge me so much). Also, I managed to crash the 605 easily by skipping through songs "too many times". It really sucks to have your whole MP3/MP4 device reboot on you just because you wanted to skip to the good part of a song. I know this article is about the Archos 5 and 7, but my experience with the 605 is bad enough that I am right now recommending people to not trust Archos.

The N810 is so far much better. I can still find a few bugs here and there but nothing so far that can completely crash the whole system (even when using "unsupported applications"). The fact that they encouraged open development on day 1 has allowed a huge 3rd party library of applications since the day I got my N810. On top of that, they give me a simple terminal shell so I can run console applications without have to do crazy GTK or Qt porting.

tl;dr: The N810 is a better system for end users anyway.

Re:Archos is not that good anyway; go with Nokia

[Buzz_Light]

The problem has always seen to be that Archos is great at designing hardware, and terrible at writing software. That's why this move (for the most part) is being hailed as a step forward. This gives the community the possibility to make great software for these devices.

While your on the subject of the 605 though, that hardware is two generations old. They have completely abandoned software updates for it. Why doesn't Archos produce a similar developer firmware for that generation? With their recent history, they could use all the good-will they can get.

Re:Archos is not that good anyway; go with Nokia

[tlhIngan]

The problem has always seen to be that Archos is great at designing hardware, and terrible at writing software. That's why this move (for the most part) is being hailed as a step forward. This gives the community the possibility to make great software for these devices.

True, the Archos software stinks. But their hardware is more a spec-sheet marketing list than anything impressive. It's got great specs, but Archos then uses piss-poor low-quality components.

You interact with the screen, which on the spec sheet is nice (800x480), but I've had to take my Archos back 3-4 times each because they had dead pixels until I got a good one. Make sure you buy from B&M store because you'll have to spend to send it back. Archos won't RMA it unless there's like 5 dead pixels on the screen, so you'll have to have store that does no-question returns. Otherwise all the videos you'll look at have bright spots from all the stuck pixels. And nevermind that one of my replacements came out of the brand-new box, and the hard drive died 2 days later. Powered it up and it was loud and clunking as it booted up the first time.

That, and Archos started locking out hard drives so you can't even replace the hard drive - the firmware won't boot from unauthorized hard drives.

Because of this, I avoided buying the new models (which I heard are even worse - imagine buying a new device and every time you tap/click, you get an ad wanting you to buy some new accessory now). But maybe now I'll go get one, change it 3-4 times (probably empty the store of 'em, at Christmas nonetheless) to get a good one, and then hack it. I wonder if this will also allow hard drive upgrades, as well. A way to get rid of the ads, put on VLC or something on it...

Sell the Hardware

[Nerdfest]

I'm not sure why they lock down their hardware. I had a 405, and it was awesome ... but would have been way better if they unlocked it and let people write applications. As it was, they only sold a couple of codecs. If they make money of the hardware, and I assume they do, why cripple it? They had the best touch screen tablet on the market a few years ago, but threw it away by crippling it.

All devices should have dev firmware

[HalAtWork]

Why don't hardware manufacturers simply release development firmwares from the outset for all of their devices? Hardware manufacturers tend to let their products fizzle out and stagnate, but there are always interested parties waiting to take the device to a new level. Hardware manufacterers would benefit from the ability to produce the same hardware for cheaper while seeing increased demand for the product. This could potentially raise their profits if a hardcore community forms around their device.

Re:All devices should have dev firmware

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

It likely depends on exactly where the hardware manufacturer actually makes their money.

If they actually make their money on superior hardware designs, or superior manufacturing efficiency, then they should be all for open software development. They get their software for free, geeks get the crazy features that they want, everybody wins. Unknown manufacturers trying to break in to the market would also likely be enthusiastic. Just being able to print "Runs $POPULAR_OSS_FIRMWARE" on your package is easier than doing proper localization and UI design to suit a new market, particularly if your company has lots of experience as a contract manufacturer; but not so much doing software design or marketing.

On the other hand, if you earn your money by providing good integration of what would otherwise be commodity hardware and software, you have no real incentive to support third party efforts. You don't have a real disincentive, if your customers are stupid enough to throw away the best parts of your product that isn't your problem; but you have nothing to gain.

Outfits that distinguish themselves primarily by software quality, or use software to enforce market segmentation/price discrimination strategies would have reason to be actively hostile. If Product A and Product A Professional Premium differ only in software, an OpenWRT port for Product A is going to ruin Product A Professional Premium's day.

Re:All devices should have dev firmware

[mrmeval]

Why should I buy crap like this? It's obvious they're hostile to the OS they're using and to the Linux community in general. Why did they disable functionality?

Re:Tablet?

[IANAAC]

they are tiny palm sized devices, i think someone has redefined 'tablet'.

Nokia "redefined" tablet in 2006 with its N770 Internet Tablet, then N800, then N810.

It's not a new concept.

Re:"Full Marketplace Experience"

[nurb432]

No, i'm sick of 'marketing'. Its everywhere, and i'm tired of it being shoved in my face 24/7.

Re:"Full Marketplace Experience"

[the_womble]

Your right, I love easy app installs. The app stores I use are called "Synaptc" and "RPMDrake".

It actually takes me three clicks, rather than one, but maybe that's why Linux is regarded as geeky.

More seriously, app stores are a problem if they are the only way to install software. I would like something like these Archaos tablets, but with an OS that allowed me to install the same hardware as on the desktop.

Stuff Archos - SmartQ

[thatkid_2002]

The new SmartQ tablets are much cheaper and they allow you to do pretty much whatever you want. You can see them at http://www.dealextreme.com/search.dx/search.SmartQ and those prices include free postage. The new v7 7" (and v5 5", which I haven't seen on anywhere yet but they have made them) even have HDMI and 1080p playback. By default they triple boot WinCE, Ubuntu (you can install Mer) and Android. If you decide to not wait a month or two and yet an older version make sure you upgrade the firmware as the media performance of the 1.0 firmware sucks. The SmartQ tablets don't come with a massive amount of storage space but just add your own, its much cheaper.

Re:Archos has always been better value than Nokia

[TheRaven64]

The Archos 5 Internet Media Tablet now ships with 250GB hard drive

The spec sheet looked interesting until I got that far down. A mechanical drive in a handheld in 2009? Crazy. I'd rather have lower capacity and no moving parts.

Archos has USB 2.0 host for keyboards, mice and external hard drives

Powered? The Nokia tablets have USB host support too, but it's unpowered. You need to plug them into a hub (or a 9V battery). If it has powered USB then you're draining the device's small battery to power the keyboard and mouse.