Jukebox's Audrey Hackers Manual
The following resources are available free for everybody:
- www.audreyhacking.com and Linux-hackers BBS
- Utilities Reference on QNX.com
- QNX RTP 6.0 and 6.1
Also you need 2 LAN shares in Audrey. I use one for everything I throw out and the second for everything I want to copy to Audrey. I comment out lines in scripts, but don't delete them. This way I'm always capable to reverse mods that I don't want to use for whatever reason.
Last but not least you'll need 2 or more flash cards and archive your work often on these cards and on a share. From time to time you will be so messed up that you either delete the card or the image on a share, but seldom both of them.
Search the first two sites for hacks/topics you're interested in and you will find many how-to's for hacking Audrey. However they don't always work as advertised, many aren't done right or are plain confusing in their description and many are only half done and apparently never finished.
I think I used around 6 complete hacks from these resources and they learned me a lot. Everything else I have done with the help of the RTP's, the Utilities Reference on QNX. com, together with the help of the greatest hacker tool in existence and also freely available: Neutrino Sin.
Neutrino Sin!
The top part of the screen shows all processes currently running in Audrey and the RTP. The bottom part of the screen has a couple of tabs, of which the following are important for us hackers. Highlight a process and click on the tabs in the bottom half.
- Memory shows everything that runs with this process, mainly where the executable is located and the lib's in use by it
- Args shows the params used when starting the executable
- Env shows you the difference in environment setup between Audrey and the RTP and therefore indicates what to move where from the RTP to Audrey
- The top screen has a CPU tab showing how much CPU time the different processes are using.
The RTP has a lot of nice apps running out of the box and it's extremely easy to add new ones from various QNX Repositories. Being interested to have some app on Audrey you check if it's available in the RTP and if not you install it. When the app runs you use Neutrino Sin to find out everything you need to know before copying it from the list you have made and the directories where the different parts have to go. That way moving apps from the RTP to Audrey in general was a straight forward sequence of steps, mainly facilitated by the use of cp (copy) and FileManager. I had any and all software that runs on the RTP 6.0 running on Audrey too. Some did very well and you'll see them in my images. Others caused Audrey to slow down to almost zero and you don't see them in my images. Many are too large and since storage is limited in Audrey, those you will not see either.
A complicating factor is that many kojak lib's are crippled versions from the RTP with the same name. In my images I believe all lib's are replaced if crippled. Replacing lib's can be a hazardous step. Some you cannot delete or copy over them, because they are "in use". However I found out renaming them allows you most of the time to replace them. Always have a working image available to reflash Audrey if needed.
After each successful step and Audrey reboots, you save your work on the flash card. When Audrey refuses to boot do a reflash and you're back at your last successful step.
Many times when a step failed and Audrey still booted beyond the "3COM Proudly Presents" and I was watching a blank desktop, I was still able to use the wm pop-up menu with a couple of apps in it and I was able to correct the problem in one of these 5 config files:
/kojak/go, /kojak/boot.sh, /config/rm-apps, /config/startup-main, /config/startup-warm.
The Utilities Reference on QNX.com is your knowledge base to resolve any and all problems while setting up apps and other features in Audrey.
It's as easy as I describe here. However you have to be capable of absorbing complicated information and chew on a problem and analyze the cause of success or failure. I resolved most problems when driving my car alone on long trips and never while working with Audrey.
Happy hacking for all of you. I hope this helps.
jukebox
http://www.prins.net/audrey/index.html
