I am pleased to announce that my efforts in porting Richard Lovejoy's empeg VolAdj code (for dynamically adjusting the volume) over to the Receiver have been sucessful. It works !!

You can find details of my patched kernel and how to install it here. Please check the section on "Known issues" on the page.

As ever, thanks to Richard for providing such a great bit of code (and thanks to Tony for testing it for me).

Note that this also works if you're using a Jupiter, er, HSX-109 as your server, since the ARF file is laying loose on the Jupiter's file system just like it is on a Windows box. Of course, in order to put the ARF file onto the Jupiter, you either need a serial debug port (which only the developers and alpha testers have), or you need a USB keyboard to get a shell prompt on the Jupiter's screen and a copy of the ARF file on a CD-R so you can grab it.

Question: Isn't the ARF file just a TAR file? Aren't there Windows TAR utilities that could be used to edit the ARF file, too? I know that I have no trouble opening it in Winzip if I rename it to TAR. Dunno if Winzip can create a proper TAR that will work or not, haven't tried.

You are right, the arf file is just a tar file in disguise. The problem is that the arf file contains the whole file system for the Receiver including the /dev entries that are used by the device drivers. For the /dev entries to work you need a app that honours all the extra data that tar files carry concerning Unix files (in particular in this case the device major and minor numbers).

WinZip does not honour this info, meaning you cannot use it to patch the arf file.

It should be possible to use one of the Windows ports of GNU tar to patch the arf file, but I haven't tried it myself yet.

I am investigating providing other ways that people can patch their arf files.

www.cygwin.com has all the Windows ports of Linux utilities you need.

Work great for me.

Unless I have missed something on their site then the only way to get a copy of tar is to download their whole 20Mb+ suite. However, I can vouch for the fact that once downloaded tar worked pefectly for updating receiver.arf (as expected).

Unless I have missed something on their site then the only way to get a copy of tar is to download their whole 20Mb+ suite.

Yeah, but you'll feel much better for it.

Peter (do consumer versions of Windows still not come with bash?)

I don't need to, I have a selection of Linux boxes...

So have I. The first thing I install on a new Windows installation is still cygwin. I'm not a rabid bash fanatic like Peter, but I can't get very far without tail, for one.

As far as I can tell, there's nothing stopping you from distributing tar and the cygwin DLL separately from the rest of the package -- provided you obey the GPL terms.

Hadn't thought of that. I think I shall finish my tool anyway, it's nearly complete and will be easier to use than tar...

...I can't get very far without tail...

I think that goes for most of us. I go insane if it's been more than a week.