ThinkWiki - User contributions [en]

Talk:Script for theft alarm using HDAPS

2006-10-31T11:43:53Z

Nightwolf: Is there a way do make something like this work on Windows?

Wonderful idea! And works perfectly on my T43p, scared the cat away. ;)

--[[User:Spiney|spiney]] 20:35, 12 Nov 2005 (CET)
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Good, so it's at least a cat deterrant! A friend of mine had a nasty incident involving a laptop and a cat...
BTW, I'm the author (identifed by IP address again due the usual ThinkWiki autologin flakiness).

--[[User:Thinker|Thinker]] 20:52, 12 Nov 2005 (CET)
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I had to tweak the line that reads the position file. My position file has - numbers in it for some reason, so:
m/^$-(\d+),-(\d+)$$/ or die "Can't parse $pos_file content\n";

After that change it works great.
It scared the dogs away here. ;)
--[[User:nirik|nirik]] 21:24, 12 Nov 2005 (CET)
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Fixed. Which ThinkPad model, BTW?

--[[User:Thinker|Thinker]] 21:44, 12 Nov 2005 (CET)
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Cool. Excellent. ;)

T42p here.

--[[User:Nirik|Nirik]] 21:45, 12 Nov 2005 (CET)
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I love it! Great contributions, Thinker!

Of course, it is more proof-of-concept tough, as a thief can simply hit the "mute" button, or carry an old headphone plug with the actual headphones chopped off and stuff this quickly into the audio out jack. Don't leave your laptop unattended :) :)

--[[User:Gsmenden|Gsmenden]] 18:06, 28 Nov 2005 (CET)
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Thanks! About muting, I'm not sure the mute button will work (I reset the mixer volumes every second), but the thief can certainly power off, or suspend, or pull out the AC and battery. But my hope is that the casual, uninformed laptop-snatcher will trigger the alarm for at least a few seconds, and if you're just down the hall or there are other people nearby, that's probably enough to save your laptop. Not as good as a real lock+alarm, but better than nothing, and pretty convenient when autoactivated by the screensaver (<tt>$use_kde=1</tt>).

--[[User:Thinker|Thinker]] 01:40, 29 Nov 2005 (CET)
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==Usefulness for head parking==
Works great. Maybe we can the script for testing the disk park patches by Jon Escombe <lists@dresco.co.uk>
-- [[User:Ozi23]]
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You can use it for testing, but note that the specific algorithm used in this script (threshold on standard deviation of samples during last second) is optimized for the theft deterrent situation. It is highly unsuitable for the head parking application, since it reacts too slowly -- by the it will recognize the movement, the disk heads will have already crashed. For head parking you'd need a low-latency algorithm, and preferably an in-kernel implementation to allow frequeny low-overhead polling, reduce latencies, and avoid accidentally spinning the disk ''up'' when loading or swapping in userspace stuff needed to spin the disk ''down''.

--[[User:Thinker|Thinker]] 20:20, 14 Nov 2005 (CET)
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It's even worse that I thought. Check out the [ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/pc/pccbbs/mobiles_pdf/aps2mst.pdf IBM white paper] - there's barely enough time to park the head, so in the Windows driver they're using some pretty fancy learning algorithm to deduce when movement deviates from "normal", to decide when to redefine "normal".

--[[User:Thinker|Thinker]] 19:08, 22 Nov 2005 (CET)
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Good news every one .....
Just kidding. I've found the hdapsd package which acts as a deamon for the hdaps and uses the kernel patch by Jon Escombe. I havent tested it but some people
were able to get the protection system work. It seems to depend on the firmware of the harddrive. Its in early stage so be carefull.

http://lwn.net/Articles/154923/ (kernel patch)
http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=100167 (hdapsd)

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== Minor modifications ==

tp-theft.pl v0.33 is working fine here, but I have modified some parts:
* I made a change for kdesktop_lock since it is located in /usr/kde/<kde-version>/bin/ here (Gentoo-specific)
* I removed the check wether kdesktop is running. I start tp-theft.pl via inittab which will be up before I have logged in

-- satmd, 2005-12-25

What's Gentoo's way of finding out the KDE path? I suppose
my $bin = `which kdesktop_lock`;
won't work from an initscript because the PATH is not set up yet.

--[[User:Thinker|Thinker]] 23:38, 25 Dec 2005 (CET)

With Gentoo
/usr/bin/env kde-config --exec-prefix --expandvars
returns /usr/kde/3.5 . That looks general useable to me.
I do not use an initscript, but inittab
... with initscripts one could easily source /etc/profile or something.

-- satmd, 2005-12-25

Will an inittab script find <tt>kde-config</tt>, which is probably in {{path|/usr/kde/<kde-version>/bin/}} too? And if so, won't <tt>which kdedesktop_lock</tt> also work?

--[[User:Thinker|Thinker]] 00:56, 26 Dec 2005 (CET)

Did not work - both of them. Keeping my hardcoded value.
-- satmd, 2005-12-26 06:09 CET

== Is there a way do make something like this work on Windows? ==

see topic.

Talk:How to change the BIOS bootsplash screen (under Windows)

2006-10-08T18:01:29Z

Nightwolf:

On which models does this work? --[[User:Whizkid|Whizkid]] 18:53, 20 Sep 2005 (CEST)

mabe it works under wine
mabe it works under reactos

I tried to change the bootsplash on my T60 and it didn't work although the flashing program asked me if I want to use the custom bootsplash.

How to change the BIOS bootsplash screen

2006-10-05T21:12:02Z

Nightwolf: the website where the trinity bootsplash should be is not available anymore

{| width="100%"
|style="vertical-align:top;padding-right:20px;width:10px;white-space:nowrap;" | __TOC__
|style="vertical-align:top" |
<div style="margin: 0; margin-right:10px; border: 1px solid #dfdfdf; padding: 0em 1em 1em 1em; background-color:#efefef; align:right;">
This page describes how to replace the standard IBM BIOS Bootsplash (The one with the ThinkPad- and Pentium M-Logo), without access to Microsoft Windows or a floppy drive.

Windows users who want to have a custom splash image when they start up should try [[How to change the BIOS bootsplash screen (under Windows) | this guide]] instead.
</div>
|}
== Getting the Files ==
You'll need the bios upgrade file from the IBM website.

=== Method 1: Using a Non-Diskette-File and cabextract ===

For ThinkPads {{R50}}, {{R50p}}, {{R51}} (1829, 1830, 1831, 1836), {{R52}}, {{T40}}, {{T40p}}, {{T41}}, {{T41p}}, {{T42}}, {{T42p}}, {{T43}}, {{T43p}} this file is suitable:
* [ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/pc/pccbbs/mobiles/1ruj28us.exe 1ruj28us.exe]
* [ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/pc/pccbbs/mobiles/1ruj29us.exe 1ruj29us.exe]
* [ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/pc/pccbbs/mobiles/1ruj30us.exe 1ruj30us.exe] Released 2005-05-26 '''NEW!'''
There may be a more recent file on the IBM website.

Last version at 2006-01-04 :
* [ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/pc/pccbbs/mobiles/1ruj33us.exe 1ruj33us.exe] Released 2005-10-25 '''NEW!'''

You need the cabextract tool to extract files from the exe:
:{{cmdroot|apt-get install cabextract}}

Do this to get the ibm file and extract the disk image from it:
:{{cmdroot|cd /tmp}}
:{{cmdroot|wget ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/pc/pccbbs/mobiles/1ruj30us.exe}}
:{{cmdroot|cabextract -F "*.IMG" 1ruj30us.exe}}
:{{cmdroot|mv 1RUJ30US.IMG floppy.bin}}

=== Method 2: Using a Diskette-File and dosemu ===
Another option is to use the "Diskette BIOS file".<br>
For ThinkPads {{R50}}, {{R50p}}, {{R51}} (1829, 1830, 1831, 1836), {{R52}}, {{T40}}, {{T40p}}, {{T41}}, {{T41p}}, {{T42}}, {{T42p}}, {{T43}}, {{T43p}} this file is suitable:
* [ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/pc/pccbbs/mobiles/1ruj28ud.exe 1ruj28ud.exe]
* [ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/pc/pccbbs/mobiles/1ruj29ud.exe 1ruj29ud.exe]
* [ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/pc/pccbbs/mobiles/1ruj30ud.exe 1ruj30ud.exe] Released 2005-05-26 '''NEW!'''

The file is an OS/2 executables and don't run with wine, so you need to install dosemu to run it and create the image.<br>
:{{cmdroot|apt-get install dosemu dosemu-freedos}}
(for non-debian-users: Get dosemu and freedos somewhere and make it work somehow).

With dosemu, you can run this executable, but this program unfortunately
needs a floppy drive to write to. So use the loopback device, to create a virtual floppy.
:{{cmdroot|1=dd if=/dev/zero of=/tmp/floppy.bin bs=1024 count=1440}}
:{{cmdroot|losetup /dev/loop0 /tmp/floppy.bin}}
Put this block device ({{path|/dev/loop0}}) into the dosemu configuration as the floppy disk device.
Now you can run the extractor executable, which makes {{path|/tmp/floppy.bin}} the desired floppy image .
:{{cmdroot|dosemu 1ruj27ud.exe}}
:{{cmdroot|losetup -d /dev/loop0}}

For 2.6.12+ if you have dosemu error:
:{{cmdroot|echo 0 > /proc/sys/kernel/randomize_va_space}}

== Adding the custom image ==
Mount your floppy.bin as a loopback device.
:{{cmdroot|mkdir /tmp/mnt}}
:{{cmdroot|1=mount -o loop,umask=000 /tmp/floppy.bin /tmp/mnt}}
Create a 16 color 640x480 BMP (4 Bit/pixel VGA palette) (for example with Gimp) and save it to {{path|/tmp/mnt/logo.bmp}}.
You could use this tux image (which is no longer available because someone deleted it) for example.<br /><br />
When creating your image, keep in mind that on the T43p (and others??), regardless of your custom bootsplash screen there will be a superimposed black "Centrino" logo (~100x100 pixels) on the upper right of your display, so you might want to keep that area clear. You might also want to reserve the bottom 150 pixels for the "boot options" / "Entering BIOS setup" message(s) too, which will also be displayed.<br /><br />
Now prepare the image with <tt>prepare.exe</tt> using wine: (This does not work with dosemu!)
:{{cmdroot|wine prepare.exe logo.scr}}
The image must compress to <10k. If you receive an error, you can try reducing the number of colors in your image palette (step down to an 12 or 8 color palette for a very significant reduction in image size.) When successful, there should be a new {{path|logo.mod}} and your {{path|logo.bmp}}. If so, you are set, don't forget to unmount your loopback device:
:{{cmdroot|umount /tmp/mnt}}

== Fake a floppy ==
Now you need to put the image on a floppy and boot from it. Since recent ThinkPads don't have a
floppy drive, we can use a CD-R (or a CD-RW, actually, for the cheap ones, like me) and burn it with the following command:
:{{cmdroot|1=mkisofs -b floppy.bin floppy.bin <nowiki>|</nowiki> cdrecord dev=<device> - }}
(<tt><device></tt> being your cd writer device)

== The exciting part ==
After this worked, reboot your ThinkPad from the cdrom by pressing F12 while booting
and wait for the IBM tool to start.
Be sure to have your ThinkPad on AC power and say ''Yes'' to the questions the BIOS Upgrade Tool asks.
It will then flash the BIOS, which will take about a minute.

Suddenly the laptop turns itself off with two beeps.
When booting, you'll have your bootsplash picture.

Unfortunately, you won't see it really long, but it's better
than the standard one, so it was worth the action.

Have fun!

BTW next time you have to flash the BIOS the IBM BIOS updater will detect a custom boot splash and ask you if you want to preserve it or restore the original.

== Share your custom bootsplash image ==
If you've created your own bootsplash image and want to share it with other you can post it here.

* Schnappi bootsplash: Bow to the power of [http://folk.uio.no/igorr/t43/final.bmp Schnappi]. The BMP image compressed to about 6KB. Schni, schna, schnappi!