Guides

Guides, DIY, and How-to’s
Welcome to the guides section of our blog. This catagory is reserved for a lot of the technical things of what we love doing throughout our day to day existence. Some of these deal with some DIY projects we’ve done while others is just our own experience with certain pieces of hardware. Feel free to browse around as there may be something of interest to you.
Accuracy and update CRC.
As a kind note: Many of these guides are based around the personal experiences of those who run s-config.com and may not reflect the correct way of doing something. If you have any problems with what you are reading you can drop a comment in the article or contact us for any modifications or corrections.

Linux, ADB, Raspberry Pi, Ouya? Lineage? Really?

December 19, 2023August 30, 2019 by S-Config

Linux ADB into your Ouya via the Raspberry Pi? With SSH even?!?! It's more likely than you think!

Razer finally pulled the plug on Ouya's servers on June 25 of 2019. June 25, 2013, marks the birth date of the Ouya's initial release (not bad for a console that was only designed to last for a few years). Users and preservationists have been scattering the net to find a way to keep these silver boxes running into 2019 and beyond. Of course, a lot of them have found our original Cyanogen blog entry. This article is helping people to this very day in getting rid of the Stock Ouya firmware and loading it with something that no longer requires Ouyas Authentication servers. For all of those who have come to our blog for help. Allow us to thank you for visiting this independent blog and hope that you found the answers you were looking for.

But as time progresses so does the way we think, and the way we hack our Android boxes.

Read on if you want to know more.

ArdunioDECK – a DIY OBS streaming solution on the cheap.

December 19, 2023June 23, 2019 by S-Config

OMG ArduinoDECK!

Marketing is an interesting thing; We could say that we've developed a new open-source product called "ArduinoDECK" which is a cheaper solution to the Elgato StreamDeck. Or! Better idea! We could just be honest and tell you that this is a basic boy Ardunio Pro-Micro / Leonardo / Due with a keyboard digital input program that we can learn early on in our micro-controller programming hobby.

Yeah, let us go with the second explanation.

We should throw a disclaimer because we love you. This is our first time playing with the world of Arduino. So if our code sucks or if our terminology is wrong. Drop a comment below. We'll appreciate you telling us and will correct it as best as we can. Read on if you want to know more.

Ouya overscan issues – Cyanogen, ASOP, Lineage

December 19, 2023May 26, 2019 by S-Config

Addressing overscan issues. The reason why overscan does not affect the stock Ouya is simply put they placed all of their lettering near the center of the screen for all of their actions. Leaving a large margin produces less of a need for a user to demand overscan to be fixed. Flat-panel televisions are ... Read more

Section 5: Restoring your Ouya Firmware.

December 19, 2023April 30, 2019 by S-Config

Firmware restore on the Ouya.

When playing with Android OS there needs to be an "Undo" button when it comes to the Firmware. The Ouya is no different. Perhaps as a user, you've grown tired of playing with Lineage. Perhaps you are going to sell your Ouya on eBay and you don't want any data left on the thing. Or you're trying to bring a soft-bricked Ouya back to life. Whatever the case may be this tutorial is here to help you wipe whatever is on your Ouya and bring it back to factory defaults.

This is considered "Section 5" of a long tutorial about Ouya because, like all of the previous sections, we'll be relying on the Raspberry Pi or a Linux box to perform these tasks instead of going through the sheer pain of using ADB on a Windows environment. Also, some of the beginning sections are required for those who have never used a Linux box in their life.

Without further delay, let's dive in shall we?

Section 4: Tweaking Lineage.

December 19, 2023April 30, 2019 by S-Config

Tweak the hell out of that Ouya Lineage.

This article dives into your Ouya's afterlife that now that you have loaded the Lineage OS your game console isn't necessarily customized for that some settings may need to be played with to make the experiencing a little more acceptable for general use. We can't go through every possible scenario as that would make a few-minute video turn into hours and hours of video and further drive this blogger down the path of insanity. But we hope to at least answer some of the more commonly asked questions throughout this article.

Read on if you want to know more.

Section 3 : Method 2: ADB “Push” Lineage from Raspberry Pi to Ouya.

December 19, 2023April 29, 2019 by S-Config

ADB Sideloading Lineage onto your Ouya via Raspberry Pi.

This tutorial assumes that you have already set up your base Raspberry Pi OS and that you are either operating locally on the Pi or via SSH from another PC. This tutorial uses a more traditional "Push" method that we've used in previous tutorials such as Cyanogen but updated for performing the same task underneath Lineage. This tutorial also assumes that This is our current 2019 method of flashing and programming Ouya and Android devices due to the nature of commercial OS's locking the security down on hardware devices. If you have already unlocked ADB on your commercial OS and you have the ADB bridge drivers installed you can follow along on that OS with this tutorial.

Read on if you want to learn more.

Section 3 : Method 1: ADB Sideloading Lineage – Raspberry Pi to Ouya.

September 11, 2023April 28, 2019 by S-Config

ADB Sideloading Lineage onto your Ouya via Raspberry Pi.

This tutorial assumes that you have already set up your base Raspberry Pi OS and that you are either operating locally on the Pi or via SSH from another PC. This tutorial dives into the ability to sideload all of the packages required for the OS known as Lineage, which is a rebirth of the Cyanogen project in previous tutorials that we have done. This tutorial also assumes that This is our current 2019 method of flashing and programming Ouya and Android devices due to the nature of commercial OSs locking the security down on hardware devices. Read on if you want to learn more.

Section 2: SSH and Samba on the Raspberry Pi.

May 23, 2023April 26, 2019 by S-Config

Using SAMBA and SSH on the Raspberry Pi Title.

Adding SSH and Samba onto the Raspberry Pi.

Now it's time to add SSH and Samba. For those who do not know what that is. SSH is a secure shell system that allows us to remote into our pi from any computer capable of loading an SSH client such as PuTTY onto their system. SSH can also be used for FTP transfers as a way of uploading files such as apk's and images to your Raspberry Pi so you can then access them via ADB to your Ouya. But instead of SSH-FTP, we're also going to load Samba which is a windows network sharing protocol allowing us seamless transfers from our PC or MAC over wireless to our Raspberry Pi.

Now, for those who are using the Raspberry Pi as a desktop or don't care to use it in a headless manner like we do having it hooked up in our living room to the Ouya. You can probably skip this tutorial altogether! However, for those who are using it as a headless unit then read on as we provide all of the instructions down below.

Section 1: Preparing the Raspberry Pi for ADB and Ouya Action

May 23, 2023April 25, 2019 by S-Config

Let's begin with preparing our Raspberry Pi.

This blog is just one part of a multipart series on how to use the Raspberry Pi with the Ouya. It is designed this way because frankly there is way too much to cover in a single blog. Links for each of the articles as well as the header/main article will be included at the bottom of each entry to allow users ease of use in following along.

Read on if you want to know more.

Serial Servers over Ethernet – Virtual COM port mapping

June 5, 2023March 10, 2019 by S-Config

Serial over Ethernet?

This article is going to go into the world of old-school and obscure. That was before we had the internet. Before we even had such a thing as an RJ-45 jack to network with. There were only two cost-effective ways of transferring data from one device to another during the '80s and most of the '90s. Parallel and Serial transfers. This allowed computers to make a very primitive 'network' of sorts by pairing multiple serial connectors together to effectively talk to a program such as a BBS (Bulletin Board System).

With the introduction of USB, the need for these types of adapters is greatly reduced over the years. The requirement of a serial port still arises from time to time whenever you are doing with older CNC Machinery, Thermal Printers, Solar power monitoring stations, Industrial PLCs, and most importantly to us hooking up to old machines like Commodores and Amigas to do file transfers. Maybe you want to hook your high-speed network up to a 56k modem so you can re-live the days of dial-up?

It seems a little masochistic to us but some people dig the whole "Nostalgia" theme. There you go! In this day and age where you can convert anything to anything, there surely must be an effective means of virtualization serial over Ethernet right?

Let's find out!