Hex-Nail (HN-01) - RIP

[JigMelon]

@buddingglasshead That's what I've been pushing for all along. We'll make it happen.

I've already taken an image of my card, and am now removing all my info from the fs. Once done I'm packing as an image with a partition table (full disk image) and as just the plain partition, and will be testing out flashing the cleaned image to another sd card to test in the unit. If it goes well, we'll at least have a clean recovery image. I'll post it here once it's all tested but that might not be until tomorrow; it's almost bed time for me.

To anyone else who wants to tinker, I strongly advise taking a full image of your sd card and working on the file system from a DIFFERENT media container. Do not risk the functionality of your unit by working on the unit's card, and you need to make sure you are copying the full disk, including the empty space between the OS partition and the end of the disk if you want to be able to cleanly restore it as an image. I'll make a tutorial for Linux (which will likely work for Macs) and then a Windows one once I've tested.

When I do upload the image(s), I'll need someone else to test to see if it's viable on another device. The sd card has the full OS on a single partition, and there are no customizations to the board itself from what I can tell; all the magic is in the OS. That being said, I can't guarantee it won't fry your board or a component if you have different components in your device; I did not design this and do not have a proper understanding (yet). Anyone who's interested, please don't try to be a hero if you do not know what you are doing. Everyone appreciates the effort, but nobody wants to see another user with a paper weight.

Edit: Also, if anyone notices any differences between their unit and the internals of mine, please let me know what component.

Assuming the girls didn't reprogram anything, and everything is really in the OS, it appears to be extremely simple to add visual output:

I definitely see a screen and bluetooth via USB in the future.

 

[Hogni]

Maybe this desaster will end in an open source sw and some expertly processed dyi HN clones with high qualilty components?

 

[JigMelon]

It will be easy to work with but it's certainly not open source. We have no idea what license it's on, if any. If anyone were to base a product off this, it would probably be illegal.

 

[Hogni]

Didn't mean it commercial. Maybe someone who has open claims against the gals get the code arrested?
In Germany it would iuridical be possible.

 

[JigMelon]

I'm emailing Liz tomorrow and hoping to hear back. I definitely think it should be open source, I just don't think it should be posted on an open platform until it's licensed by Liz.

Also, here's what we're looking at:

A nightly build

BOARD=orangepizero
BOARD_NAME="Orange Pi Zero"
VERSION=5.33.170922
LINUXFAMILY=sun8i
BRANCH=dev
ARCH=arm
IMAGE_TYPE=nightly
BOARD_TYPE=conf
INITRD_ARCH=arm
KERNEL_IMAGE_TYPE=zImage

On a stable platform

DISTRIB_ID=Ubuntu
DISTRIB_RELEASE=16.04
DISTRIB_CODENAME=xenial
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Ubuntu 16.04.3 LTS"

This build already has a display manager implemented, as well as everything you need for audio

Nginx fully configured for the WiFi configuration webapp

Nginx conf is not PCI compliant (doesn't need to be, but that's a quick fix)

hexnail user has sudo privileges

Uses Kinesis to interface with AWS - We'll need to implement our own signaling server to go local if Liz doesn't send info

A very well put together distribution of the project in /opt/

This is definitely something that we can upgrade and improve ourselves. Really excited!

 

[alittledabwilldoya']

@buddingglasshead That's what I've been pushing for all along. We'll make it happen.

I've already taken an image of my card, and am now removing all my info from the fs. Once done I'm packing as an image with a partition table (full disk image) and as just the plain partition, and will be testing out flashing the cleaned image to another sd card to test in the unit. If it goes well, we'll at least have a clean recovery image. I'll post it here once it's all tested but that might not be until tomorrow; it's almost bed time for me.

To anyone else who wants to tinker, I strongly advise taking a full image of your sd card and working on the file system from a DIFFERENT media container. Do not risk the functionality of your unit by working on the unit's card, and you need to make sure you are copying the full disk, including the empty space between the OS partition and the end of the disk if you want to be able to cleanly restore it as an image. I'll make a tutorial for Linux (which will likely work for Macs) and then a Windows one once I've tested.

When I do upload the image(s), I'll need someone else to test to see if it's viable on another device. The sd card has the full OS on a single partition, and there are no customizations to the board itself from what I can tell; all the magic is in the OS. That being said, I can't guarantee it won't fry your board or a component if you have different components in your device; I did not design this and do not have a proper understanding (yet). Anyone who's interested, please don't try to be a hero if you do not know what you are doing. Everyone appreciates the effort, but nobody wants to see another user with a paper weight.

Edit: Also, if anyone notices any differences between their unit and the internals of mine, please let me know what component.

Assuming the girls didn't reprogram anything, and everything is really in the OS, it appears to be extremely simple to add visual output:

I definitely see a screen and bluetooth via USB in the future.

Solid work.
Did you crack open an HN-01 or a Red Queen?

 

[JigMelon]

@alittledabwilldoya' Red Queen, 2nd round. Are HN-01's also Orange Pi Zero?

 

[buddingglasshead]

@alittledabwilldoya' Red Queen, 2nd round. Are HN-01's also Orange Pi Zero?

They're different. Pretty sure it's an actual raspi b.(doubt it's the + model) I can make an image of the HN-01 but it's fair to say that's going to be the unit with the most Hodge podge builds and not a good idea for anyone else to flash.



Speaking of... After all this discussion and thought. I've come to the conclusion that the "dying SD card" issue was literally that .When I swapped my SD card in my hn01 (came with it in the trade) the previous one was an extremely low quality card. Like class 4 budget nonsense. The replacement was a Samsung Evo so middle of the road at best.


My actual conclusion is that using those shitty cards was the issue. So having data written to them constantly forced them into write protect. Basically bricking it. I doubt it was an actual coding issue like it was spun. Who knows though. Just my best guess without looking at anything else and how "prevalent" the issue actually was.

 

[brucee10]

@alittledabwilldoya' Red Queen, 2nd round. Are HN-01's also Orange Pi Zero?

They might be full Raspberry Pi based. I went to their apartment and I could have sworn I saw them assembling one off of a Raspberry.

 

[PoopMachine]

Glad to see something good coming from this. A DIY kit would be stellar. I tried to talk the girls into doing that but I think by then they were already circling the drain.

 

[Elemen0py]

@JigMelon Sensational work, man.

I'd absolutely DIY a unit with decent components and a screen if at all possible. Huge props to anyone with the expertise to make that dream a reality.

This just got very interesting.

 

[JigMelon]

They're different. Pretty sure it's an actual raspi b.(doubt it's the + model) I can make an image of the HN-01 but it's fair to say that's going to be the unit with the most Hodge podge builds and not a good idea for anyone else to flash.



Speaking of... After all this discussion and thought. I've come to the conclusion that the "dying SD card" issue was literally that .When I swapped my SD card in my hn01 (came with it in the trade) the previous one was an extremely low quality card. Like class 4 budget nonsense. The replacement was a Samsung Evo so middle of the road at best.


My actual conclusion is that using those shitty cards was the issue. So having data written to them constantly forced them into write protect. Basically bricking it. I doubt it was an actual coding issue like it was spun. Who knows though. Just my best guess without looking at anything else and how "prevalent" the issue actually was.

That actually bodes pretty well for me... I have 2x RasPi 2 Model B's, so assuming I can boot into the environment, it should be pretty easy to compare what components are different between your unit and my RasPi, simply from system journals and dmesg logs. Then we can determine how fragile that part of the environment is. It's very possible that the OS itself works with the different components in the same way; without knowing the specific differences between units it's hard to know for sure.

If you know how to create a full image of your card, feel free to send it to me. Please note, taking a full image will include personal information, such as WiFi credentials. I'll be posting a tutorial for making images from different platforms this weekend. Also, I probably wont do any work on the Skynet environment until I've gotten through the nitty gritty with the Red Queen, especially since I can't test on Skynet.

Regarding the SD card failures, that is very probable; flash memory is pretty volatile (relatively speaking), especially older implementations. If you take an image, be sure you take the necessary steps to determine the optimal block size before doing so; using the optimal block size when copying or restoring will reduce the number of read/write operations.

 

[Hollabackatcha]

I would build a touchscreen unit as long as there was the code.

 

[brucee10]

That actually bodes pretty well for me... I have 2x RasPi 2 Model B's, so assuming I can boot into the environment, it should be pretty easy to compare what components are different between your unit and my RasPi, simply from system journals and dmesg logs. Then we can determine how fragile that part of the environment is. It's very possible that the OS itself works with the different components in the same way; without knowing the specific differences between units it's hard to know for sure.

If you know how to create a full image of your card, feel free to send it to me. Please note, taking a full image will include personal information, such as WiFi credentials. I'll be posting a tutorial for making images from different platforms this weekend. Also, I probably wont do any work on the Skynet environment until I've gotten through the nitty gritty with the Red Queen, especially since I can't test on Skynet.

Regarding the SD card failures, that is very probable; flash memory is pretty volatile (relatively speaking), especially older implementations. If you take an image, be sure you take the necessary steps to determine the optimal block size before doing so; using the optimal block size when copying or restoring will reduce the number of read/write operations.

I'll try to open my Skynet to take a few photos tomorrow. Let's see how big of a mess it is inside. Maybe my touchscreen is an easier fix than I think.

 

[scalescliffs]

I'll try to open my Skynet to take a few photos tomorrow. Let's see how big of a mess it is inside. Maybe my touchscreen is an easier fix than I think.

Mine has like, dollhouse table legs holding certain parts in place. And a whole lot of glue and tape.

 

[Hogni]

I still can't get that processing - it's a real insolence! Therefore is no understanding. It's just respectless and slapdash w/o any trace of devotion. The gals are losing the last of my sympathy.

 

[brucee10]

Mine has like, dollhouse table legs holding certain parts in place. And a whole lot of glue and tape.

I saw the tape when I went to their place and saw them assembling one. They must have hid the glue gun.

 

[JigMelon]

Hey everyone. I have some new information, and I will share what I currently understand to be under public domain. Everything I say is specific to the software on the Red Queens; I do not have any clarification or testing in regard to the Skynet platform.

The software for the Red Queens was developed under the ownership of the company, opposed to Liz herself; this means the software is owned by the individual/group which purchased the HexNail company. The software has not yet been licensed, but it is something currently being looked into by the new owners. There is other information that you will be interested in, but I do not feel comfortable sharing such information at this time. I've asked what I can share and am awaiting a reply. Regardless, I assume all of the information I know will be announced publicly in the future. Just to confirm, I will absolutely not be making the file-system public, nor will I be sharing a clean restore image or any mods, until the appropriate licensing has been acquired (or abandoned) by the owners. I have not been asked to write this, and I have not been met with any legal action or forms whatsoever; I am doing this out of respect for the new ownership.

The remainder of this post is my own findings.

Almost everything on the Red Queen sd cards is open source; it is based on an open source linux distribution and for the most part, relies on additional open source software. The main proprietary component is the hexnaild software/service/daemon, which is shipped on the devices in a compiled state. Technically speaking, if you strip all of their proprietary information from the file-system, it is legal to distribute open-source components of the file-system which sits on the sd card either as files or as an image. Considering the code was created under the company, any licensing that is applied to the software in the future will be applicable retroactively; DO NOT DISTRIBUTE "hexnaild" OR ANY OTHER PROPRIETARY SOFTWARE/INFORMATION UNTIL PERMISSION TO DO SO HAS BEEN OFFICIALLY GRANTED. While it is currently not illegal to do so, it very well may be in the near future.

In regard to backing up our devices, it is easy to achieve. My initial testing was done manually using low level tools such as dd and partclone, but I've decided not to release a tutorial for this, simply due to the number of variables involved to get a working image. Not everyone here has experience with linux or linux-based file-systems, so I've done some testing using CloneZilla, which works on Linux and Unix-based operating systems and also provides a free "Live CD" for using the software outside of your main operating system (in other words, Windows users could also utilize CloneZilla for this). For basic backing up and restoring of the sd card to other sd cards of the same size or larger, it works perfectly with the default options. It is possible to edit the image and clone the edited image, and it is also possible to restore the image to a smaller sd card, so long as the used portion of the image is smaller than the available space on the new sd card. Cloning to a smaller device requires using non-default options in CloneZilla or doing so manually with the tools it utilizes (such as dd and partclone).

I will make a video tutorial for backing up and restoring the sd card with the default CloneZilla settings this week, rather than this weekend (sorry for claiming to do so this weekend previously). You are legally able to backup the full image, including their proprietary software, for the purposes of recovery, just like you're able to take an image of an album or game you've purchased (so long as you don't circumvent any explicit security measures). Distribution of the backup is where legality comes in to question. I will not be providing a tutorial for cloning to a smaller disk; anyone who is interested in doing so will need to do the necessary research if they want to achieve this. There are simply too many variables involved for me to make a tutorial for this which would satisfy everyone.

I've had success moving the linux environment to larger and smaller sd cards; when the unit is turned on it connects to my WiFi and functions as it does with the original sd card. This means it is possible, and legal, to create your own device with the same hardware and use a second sd card in that device. Selling or distribution of such a device would be illegal if it contains any of their proprietary software. Whether or not it is legal to use such a device with their hosted services is something that I do not know. I will likely be making a DIY HexNail as a test, but probably not for some time.

TL;DR:

It is possible and easy to backup and restore your device's sd card using CloneZilla and similar tools. I would advise against sharing your image anywhere until all of the proprietary software has been licensed for distribution or otherwise. Such licensing is being looked into by the new owners. Tread carefully.

 

[Roth]

Hey everyone. I have some new information, and I will share what I currently understand to be under public domain. Everything I say is specific to the software on the Red Queens; I do not have any clarification or testing in regard to the Skynet platform.

The software for the Red Queens was developed under the ownership of the company, opposed to Liz herself; this means the software is owned by the individual/group which purchased the HexNail company. The software has not yet been licensed, but it is something currently being looked into by the new owners. There is other information that you will be interested in, but I do not feel comfortable sharing such information at this time. I've asked what I can share and am awaiting a reply. Regardless, I assume all of the information I know will be announced publicly in the future. Just to confirm, I will absolutely not be making the file-system public, nor will I be sharing a clean restore image or any mods, until the appropriate licensing has been acquired (or abandoned) by the owners. I have not been asked to write this, and I have not been met with any legal action or forms whatsoever; I am doing this out of respect for the new ownership.

The remainder of this post is my own findings.

Almost everything on the Red Queen sd cards is open source; it is based on an open source linux distribution and for the most part, relies on additional open source software. The main proprietary component is the hexnaild software/service/daemon, which is shipped on the devices in a compiled state. Technically speaking, if you strip all of their proprietary information from the file-system, it is legal to distribute open-source components of the file-system which sits on the sd card either as files or as an image. Considering the code was created under the company, any licensing that is applied to the software in the future will be applicable retroactively; DO NOT DISTRIBUTE "hexnaild" OR ANY OTHER PROPRIETARY SOFTWARE/INFORMATION UNTIL PERMISSION TO DO SO HAS BEEN OFFICIALLY GRANTED. While it is currently not illegal to do so, it very well may be in the near future.

In regard to backing up our devices, it is easy to achieve. My initial testing was done manually using low level tools such as dd and partclone, but I've decided not to release a tutorial for this, simply due to the number of variables involved to get a working image. Not everyone here has experience with linux or linux-based file-systems, so I've done some testing using CloneZilla, which works on Linux and Unix-based operating systems and also provides a free "Live CD" for using the software outside of your main operating system (in other words, Windows users could also utilize CloneZilla for this). For basic backing up and restoring of the sd card to other sd cards of the same size or larger, it works perfectly with the default options. It is possible to edit the image and clone the edited image, and it is also possible to restore the image to a smaller sd card, so long as the used portion of the image is smaller than the available space on the new sd card. Cloning to a smaller device requires using non-default options in CloneZilla or doing so manually with the tools it utilizes (such as dd and partclone).

I will make a video tutorial for backing up and restoring the sd card with the default CloneZilla settings this week, rather than this weekend (sorry for claiming to do so this weekend previously). You are legally able to backup the full image, including their proprietary software, for the purposes of recovery, just like you're able to take an image of an album or game you've purchased (so long as you don't circumvent any explicit security measures). Distribution of the backup is where legality comes in to question. I will not be providing a tutorial for cloning to a smaller disk; anyone who is interested in doing so will need to do the necessary research if they want to achieve this. There are simply too many variables involved for me to make a tutorial for this which would satisfy everyone.

I've had success moving the linux environment to larger and smaller sd cards; when the unit is turned on it connects to my WiFi and functions as it does with the original sd card. This means it is possible, and legal, to create your own device with the same hardware and use a second sd card in that device. Selling or distribution of such a device would be illegal if it contains any of their proprietary software. Whether or not it is legal to use such a device with their hosted services is something that I do not know. I will likely be making a DIY HexNail as a test, but probably not for some time.

TL;DR:

It is possible and easy to backup and restore your device's sd card using CloneZilla and similar tools. I would advise against sharing your image anywhere until all of the proprietary software has been licensed for distribution or otherwise. Such licensing is being looked into by the new owners. Tread carefully.

Who is the new owner?

I thought that IG post said Team Rosin backed out of the deal. Did they end up going through with it after all, or did someone else buy it?

 

[buddingglasshead]

Hey everyone. I have some new information, and I will share what I currently understand to be under public domain. Everything I say is specific to the software on the Red Queens; I do not have any clarification or testing in regard to the Skynet platform.

The software for the Red Queens was developed under the ownership of the company, opposed to Liz herself; this means the software is owned by the individual/group which purchased the HexNail company. The software has not yet been licensed, but it is something currently being looked into by the new owners. There is other information that you will be interested in, but I do not feel comfortable sharing such information at this time. I've asked what I can share and am awaiting a reply. Regardless, I assume all of the information I know will be announced publicly in the future. Just to confirm, I will absolutely not be making the file-system public, nor will I be sharing a clean restore image or any mods, until the appropriate licensing has been acquired (or abandoned) by the owners. I have not been asked to write this, and I have not been met with any legal action or forms whatsoever; I am doing this out of respect for the new ownership.

The remainder of this post is my own findings.

Almost everything on the Red Queen sd cards is open source; it is based on an open source linux distribution and for the most part, relies on additional open source software. The main proprietary component is the hexnaild software/service/daemon, which is shipped on the devices in a compiled state. Technically speaking, if you strip all of their proprietary information from the file-system, it is legal to distribute open-source components of the file-system which sits on the sd card either as files or as an image. Considering the code was created under the company, any licensing that is applied to the software in the future will be applicable retroactively; DO NOT DISTRIBUTE "hexnaild" OR ANY OTHER PROPRIETARY SOFTWARE/INFORMATION UNTIL PERMISSION TO DO SO HAS BEEN OFFICIALLY GRANTED. While it is currently not illegal to do so, it very well may be in the near future.

In regard to backing up our devices, it is easy to achieve. My initial testing was done manually using low level tools such as dd and partclone, but I've decided not to release a tutorial for this, simply due to the number of variables involved to get a working image. Not everyone here has experience with linux or linux-based file-systems, so I've done some testing using CloneZilla, which works on Linux and Unix-based operating systems and also provides a free "Live CD" for using the software outside of your main operating system (in other words, Windows users could also utilize CloneZilla for this). For basic backing up and restoring of the sd card to other sd cards of the same size or larger, it works perfectly with the default options. It is possible to edit the image and clone the edited image, and it is also possible to restore the image to a smaller sd card, so long as the used portion of the image is smaller than the available space on the new sd card. Cloning to a smaller device requires using non-default options in CloneZilla or doing so manually with the tools it utilizes (such as dd and partclone).

I will make a video tutorial for backing up and restoring the sd card with the default CloneZilla settings this week, rather than this weekend (sorry for claiming to do so this weekend previously). You are legally able to backup the full image, including their proprietary software, for the purposes of recovery, just like you're able to take an image of an album or game you've purchased (so long as you don't circumvent any explicit security measures). Distribution of the backup is where legality comes in to question. I will not be providing a tutorial for cloning to a smaller disk; anyone who is interested in doing so will need to do the necessary research if they want to achieve this. There are simply too many variables involved for me to make a tutorial for this which would satisfy everyone.

I've had success moving the linux environment to larger and smaller sd cards; when the unit is turned on it connects to my WiFi and functions as it does with the original sd card. This means it is possible, and legal, to create your own device with the same hardware and use a second sd card in that device. Selling or distribution of such a device would be illegal if it contains any of their proprietary software. Whether or not it is legal to use such a device with their hosted services is something that I do not know. I will likely be making a DIY HexNail as a test, but probably not for some time.

TL;DR:

It is possible and easy to backup and restore your device's sd card using CloneZilla and similar tools. I would advise against sharing your image anywhere until all of the proprietary software has been licensed for distribution or otherwise. Such licensing is being looked into by the new owners. Tread carefully.

Thank you for making the headway you have and shared what you have already. Definitely makes it easier on me so I don't have to bother spending the time you have already.

Been away on business and haven't been able to touch my HNs. Figured I'd come back to being able to update to the latest, but we all know how that's gone lol.

I definitely think I'm going to build my on RQ as a fun project, but I have so many projects already


Edit: owner said HN02 is still coming as a "last" act from the original owners

Complete speculation ahead...
From the way his posts are worded (and what jigmelon mentioned) I believe they came to an agreement for the company to be dissolved by Liz and Ava but the technology being sold off to TeamRosin.

Regardless it's good that Brandon paid to have the AWS server paid for so we can continue using the units.

No way in hell I'm updating my RQ until I have adequate backups.

 

[Hogni]

Complete speculation ahead...
From the way his posts are worded (and what jigmelon mentioned) I believe they came to an agreement for the company to be dissolved by Liz and Ava but the technology being sold off to TeamRosin.

Would be a nice agreement to sell the only worth of the company as a try to avoid claims of cheated customers.

 

[PoopMachine]

Sounds like to me that means that all the previous customers are going to get boned one way or the other.

 

[JigMelon]

I'm keeping backups, too. I definitely advise everyone to make a backup of their sd card in a raw format. Based on the cache on my card and the logs, the OS on the device updates itself regularly. It is possible for the regular updates to break functionality, but most likely nothing that solely relies on hexnaild. It's very unlikely since it's based on an LTS branch, but the point is, if there are ever any issues you will now have a backup image to restore as a first troubleshooting step.

 

[JigMelon]

Just purchased everything I need to get started on further research; will be working on a separate board. My goals are to achieve root privs on the official image and also to get hexnaild working on an image not derived from the unit. Once working, all I'll need to get a second unit running is the XLR port, power port/fuse, switch, and SSR. There's likely other necessary components but I won't know until disassembling my unit further, which I am not yet prepared to do. If someone disassembles their unit completely, or at least removes all the glue so connections are easier to understand, please contact me.

 

[PoopMachine]

Just out of curiosity, what do you figure parts investment is for a DIY?