Surface Pro 2 Kexts *WIP*

[PerkyMango]

Hey guys, don't expect these for a while, but I am making a Clover Surface Pro 2 package. Upon a complete installation, you open the DMG and run the installer. It automatically installs the following. (None of which are released yet and none of which working)

 

- Camera patch: Adds a surface pro camera kext. If you are in a camera view, a window will show in the lower left of the screen for camera switching, brightness, and a zoom option. {BETA}

-  Inbuilt wi-fi patch: This is a semi-somewhat working feature. After setting wi-fi network, it crashes. It then boots normally and then freezes at login. It CAN be pinged by the network for about 10 seconds until a kernel panic occurs.

 

Optional:

  Linux Booter: This makes the default boot loader a simple build of linux that is capable of changing the default boot partition. This means that upon the default boot to linux, there is a single window and nothing else. In it, is a console button (Terminal), plus, buttons for each of the partitions in the system that sets the default partition to the partition selected, and starts a 5 second reboot timer with a cancel button to use terminal. This feature (when installed and enabled using the software) sets the macintosh partition (at boot-up) to run scripts that set the default partition back to the linux build. The issue, is that after booting to windows, it boots to windows continuously until you can find a surface keyboard.      This addon is for a simple reason. No keyboard needed for boot-up!

 

--default partition--adds a 5 second auto boot timer

 

EXPECTED EARLY 2015    --  Making a linux that is cut down to 4GB isn't exactly easy...

[JahStories]

Nice to know, its a nice idea, hope you can release it soon

[PerkyMango]

Nice to know, its a nice idea, hope you can release it soon

Thanks. Downside is that I get stuck on this and then an update comes out and I have to semi-start over.

 

I'm a team of 1...

[jape]

Half of the message reads quite strange to me... I want more info.

 

1. Both cameras already work out of the box on my SFPro2, why is a kext required? Are you just talking about a "better" camera app? Photobooth seems to work fine, and I can switch cameras via the menu.

 

2. I think everyone around here knows my opinion on the difficulty of creating a Wi-Fi driver for the Surface Pro 2 hardware. So..... how did you exactly do what you're claiming regarding Wi-Fi? Can I reproduce that? If I missed something, just say it, and maybe everyone can help.

 

3. Trimming a Linux installation down to 4GB should not be hard at all. The default Ubuntu install (which contains an entire office suite at ~1GB) is less than that. There are Linux distributions that fit into a floppy disk. How are you doing this?

 

4. Why is Linux exactly needed here? There's no concept of "default partition" in GPT. And Clover can be easily changed to work without a keyboard cover -- just add support for the EFI_ABSOLUTE_POINTER_PROTOCOL . This is much easier than it sounds because Clover already implements the simple pointer protocol (one can try this at home: plug a USB mouse and move it around with Clover running).

 

Note that I don't want to scare anyone from making a "Surface Pro 2 autoinstaller", because it's very needed.... but, let's say, just packaging all the current kexts would be a good way to start before going in with the "incredible" stuff

[PerkyMango]

Half of the message reads quite strange to me... I want more info.

 

1. Both cameras already work out of the box on my SFPro2, why is a kext required? Are you just talking about a "better" camera app? Photobooth seems to work fine, and I can switch cameras via the menu.

 

2. I think everyone around here knows my opinion on the difficulty of creating a Wi-Fi driver for the Surface Pro 2 hardware. So..... how did you exactly do what you're claiming regarding Wi-Fi? Can I reproduce that? If I missed something, just say it, and maybe everyone can help.

 

3. Trimming a Linux installation down to 4GB should not be hard at all. The default Ubuntu install (which contains an entire office suite at ~1GB) is less than that. There are Linux distributions that fit into a floppy disk. How are you doing this?

 

4. Why is Linux exactly needed here? There's no concept of "default partition" in GPT. And Clover can be easily changed to work without a keyboard cover -- just add support for the EFI_ABSOLUTE_POINTER_PROTOCOL . This is much easier than it sounds because Clover already implements the simple pointer protocol (one can try this at home: plug a USB mouse and move it around with Clover running).

 

Note that I don't want to scare anyone from making a "Surface Pro 2 autoinstaller", because it's very needed.... but, let's say, just packaging all the current kexts would be a good way to start before going in with the "incredible" stuff

Ok thanks.

Well 1)I just really thought I needed zoom on the camera because I would love to use it for better photography and I have some weird pixelations and black spots in a corner of the front camera after dropping it (I use zoom to zoom past it for video chat ect). 

2) The wi-fi driver is thrown together from other open source drivers that were related to the surface driver. I only coded a small bit. I would credit them but I have decided to end the project until I can get some more of a team.

3) I am also trying to add a few extra tools. Plus, I worded that badly. I meant to make linux with a partition of 4GB without a little error I'm having with my compiler.

4) Thank you for the feedback. Whenever I restart this project, I will be sure to remember this. I suppose that this is a bit too much to jump into until some real drivers are made. My frankenstein wi-fi driver only pings. The computer can't access anything. It's just a kernel panic. 

 

 

Thank you. ~shad0whack3r

[jape]

2) The wi-fi driver is thrown together from other open source drivers that were related to the surface driver. I only coded a small bit. I would credit them but I have decided to end the project until I can get some more of a team.

4) Thank you for the feedback. Whenever I restart this project, I will be sure to remember this. I suppose that this is a bit too much to jump into until some real drivers are made. My frankenstein wi-fi driver only pings. The computer can't access anything. It's just a kernel panic. 

 

 

But pinging is already an order of magnitude improvement over what we have now. Please share, even if it doesn't work. Which "other open source drivers" did you look into?

[PerkyMango]

But pinging is already an order of magnitude improvement over what we have now. Please share, even if it doesn't work. Which "other open source drivers" did you look into?

1. I don't exactly have it with me. I have sent it in a flash drive to a friend. I have decided to let the community work on it. This guy I sent it to, a friend of mine, the driver has a better chance with him. I had a backup, but I recently (as you can see in my recent posts) had an error and had to wipe my drive. Safe mode uncovered nothing and verbose isn't much of a help.

2. I hope this does better with said friend of mine. He and I want to keep the details low at the moment. I will add his contact info here later in a matter of time. 

3. I used parts of the Lnx2Mac realtek driver for the base setup of web browsing. (Managing packets, ect...) and many other pieces of source code from a large amount of random drivers. The drivers are currently disclosed.