[Arm-netbook] Hacking the Mele A1000 - ultra beginner guide

[Oliver Kiddle]

--- On Wed, 21/3/12, julien at forgeat.name <julien at forgeat.name> wrote:

> I am starting this thread because I have just purchased a
> Mele A1000 
> and would like to install GNU/Linux distributions on it but
> need some 
> help.

I'm in a similar position.

> So let's see if this will fly, I am blocked at the very
> beginning: an 
> UART to serial, or as I understand, UART to serial to USB
> cable is 
> required, is this what I should purchase?

I'm lucky enough to have a real serial port on my PC but the wiki page seems to indicate that the UART port runs at 3.3 volts. So do we need some sort of level shifter such as the following?
  http://www.ebay.de/itm/RS232-Serial-Port-To-TTL-Converter-MAX3223-Adapter-Module-for-PIC-ATMEL-MCU-3-3V-/230682034527
The photo shows four pins and the label GRxTx3.3v so which of the four is not used or how else is it connected?

> Same question to connect the internal USB to external

I've no idea on that either but from the "Hack A10 devices" wiki page, I was wondering if that is needed. That page talks about using adb to put stuff on an sdcard. adb seems to be some sort of Android tool.

Has anyone played much with the Android installation. I managed to get the interface into English which only helps a bit as lots of the installed applications are Chinese. I got a terminal application installed, though.

Oliver