Visual Lands Prestige 7L

Introduction

This is the Visual Lands Prestige 7L Page (or, as it self-identifies, the Softwinner Nuclear ME-107). I got this to be a cheap Skype-capable backup device for my laptop. While it does this task properly, I've noticed several glaring problems that make it sort of unsuitable for several other tasks, so I created this page to give some CyanogenMod developers some info on the device, in hopes that it will get a ROM.

Initial reports that this tablet was already rooted and would give you root access are FALSE. Trust me, it doesn't let me read some of the ext4 system-related partitions off the device (which would be nice).

Problems

Here is my list of problems that I have had with the device:

It's not rooted. This device does not allow me to install the Google Play application store, which is far superior to Amazon's application store. One example of why: search for "text" for text editing applications on Amazon's store returns five results for sex applications and none for a text editor.
You cannot "su root". It would be nice if they gave you the user privilege separation of a Linux computer by allowing a user password and a root password. And why not? That way you insert password (even if it's only a PIN) upon start-up (for user) and then for admin actions you can set a root/admin password. This could make some actions like fixing the default android, and/or installing CyanogenMod easier. And at $100, why would the company care what you do with the tablet? At that price point, more people can afford to risk bricking the device to put CyanogenMod or even a full-fledged Linux distribution on it than, say, would be willing to risk such an action on an $800 smart phone.
Amazon's application store is horrible (see previous item). Why would it even list sex-related applications in its store? There's no prompt for proof that you're of age. My kids could've installed applications and seen things that are above their age group.
The microSD card reader and software behind it assume that you're going to use FAT32. You can run "mount" and see that its own internal filesystems are ext4: why can't I then use ext4 on the microSD? I can only guess the software behind it always tries to mount this device as Linux type vfat. FAT32 and exFAT are not the most efficient or capable filesystems out there. Linux can detect the filesystem on devices, so why not allow others like ext4? Case in point, inserting a USB device formatted EXT4 results in "SD card damaged" notification. After discovering that the tablet doesn't like cfdisk but likes fdisk in terms of creating partitions, I tried once again, but the tablet still reports that an SD card with an EXT4 filesystem is "damaged."
Their manual promises that you can encrypt a microSD. I followed their instructions but the option to encrypt never appears. I can tell that there are crypto modules on the machine, to include twofish. Even if it were only a standard of encryption that makes little impact on processing speed and power, it would be nice to have this option.
Their software has problems "fixing" microSD cards that it considers "damaged". Try to do it and it seems to error out somewhere, because then you still don't have the microSD card available for use. I had to take it out and put it in a Windows computer (until I realized that it's the tablet not liking how cfdisk creates partitions starting at sector zero: using fdisk solved the problem) to format it for use so that this tablet could use it.
Once when using the microSD just fine, then restarting the tablet, the microSD then did not work. I discovered that apparently the tablet zeroized the partition table on the microSD.
Forcefully installing Google Play on the device doesn't work: the store closes for no apparent reason upon startup. I'm wondering if it's because there's some sort of TSR code running to prevent you from using it at all.
There are no themes. Seriously, none, and no way to even pick one or install one. You'd think they'd let you theme the tablet, but they don't. It has wallpapers and Live Wallpapers but alas no theme capabilities.
The "restore factory condition" feature to reset the tablet resulted in an environment that looks more like what the vanilla CyanogenMod looks like. Notice I said "looks". It results in a tablet that's more broken than before, with random hangs, lags, and breaks that defy my memory to write them all down.
Plug it into Linux, nothing happens. It was set up as "as installed" for USB and "USB large storage" was selected. However, when I click Media Device I get the error message "Unfortunately, the process android.process.media has stopped." It breaks.
The included file manager cannot select multiple files to copy or move at one time. Let's just say updating one's extensive music collection can become a royal pain, not to mention a write-cycle waste on solid state devices.

Gleaned Information

Here's some information that I've gleaned from the device:

/proc/cpuinfo:
Processor: ARMv7 Processor rev 2 (v7l)

BogoMIPS: 1001.88

Features: swp half thumb fastmult vfp edsp neon
            vfpv3

CPU implementer: 0x41

CPU architecture: 7

CPU variant: 0x3

CPU part: 0xc08

CPU revision: 2

Hardware: sun51

Revision: a13b

/proc/interrupts:

        
            CPU0

  0:     
            13449    sw_vic  axp_mfd, pcf8563

  7:    
            361567    sw_vic  sun5i-i2c.0

  8:   
            5349687    sw_vic  sun5i-i2c.1

  9:     
            48218    sw_vic  sun5i-i2c.2

 22:         








            4    sw_vic  timer0

 23:   
            3748795    sw_vic  aw clock event irq

 27:   
            6872155    sw_vic  dma_irq

 28:     
            30461    sw_vic  ft5x_ts

 31:      
            2374    sw_vic  sun4ikbd

 32:   10504648   
            sw_vic  sunxi-mmc

 37:   
            1430659    sw_vic  nand

 38:      
            1515    sw_vic

 39:   
            2291858    sw_vic  ehci_hcd:usb2

 42:     
            63507    sw_vic  sun5i_csi

 44:   
            2281009    sw_vic  dev_name

 47:   
            1140293    sw_vic  dev_name

 53:         








            0    sw_vic  cedar_dev

 69:    
            331406    sw_vic  mali_gp_irq_handlers

 70:         








            0    sw_vic  mali_mmu_irq_handlers

 71:    
            331090    sw_vic  mali_pp_irq_handlers

 72:         








            0    sw_vic  mali_mmu_irq_handlers

/proc/modules:
8188eu 686814 0 - Live 0x00000000

mxc622x 6310 0 - Live 0x00000000

rtl8150 10305 0 - Live 0x00000000

mcs7830 7581 0 - Live 0x00000000

qf9700 9152 0 - Live 0x00000000

asix 24601 0 - Live 0x00000000

sun5i_csi0 34140 0 - Live 0x00000000

gc0308 16888 1 - Live 0x00000000

videobuf_dma_contig 6243 1 sun5i_csi0, Live
            0x00000000

videobuf_core 20242 2
            sun5i_csi0,videobuf_dma_contig, Live 0x00000000

cedarx 11869 0 - Live 0x00000000

mali 114119 10 - Live 0x00000000

ump 34182 23 mali, Live 0x00000000

sun4i_vibrator 2451 0 - Live 0x00000000

ft5x_ts 44577 0 - Live 0x00000000

nand 164126 8 - Live 0x00000000

/proc/mounts:
rootfs / rootfs rw 0 0

tmpfs /dev tmpfs rw,nosuid,relatime,mode=755 0 0

devpts /dev/pts devpts
            rw,relatime,mode=600,ptmxmode=000 0 0

proc /proc proc rw,relatime 0 0

sysfs /sys sysfs rw,relatime 0 0

none /acct cgroup rw,relatime,cpuacct 0 0

tmpfs /mnt/asec tmpfs
            rw,relatime,mode=755,gid=1000 0 0

tmpfs /mnt/obb tmpfs
            rw,relatime,mode=755,gid=1000 0 0

/dev/block/nandd /system ext4
            rw,nodev,noatime,user_xattr,barrier=0,data=ordered 0 0

/dev/block/nande /data ext4
            rw,nosuid,nodev,noatime,user_xattr,barrier=0,journal_checksum,data=ordered,noauto_da_alloc








            0 0

/dev/block/nandh /cache ext4
            rw,nosuid,nodev,noatime,user_xattr,barrier=0,journal_checksum,data=ordered,noauto_da_alloc








            0 0

/dev/block/vold/93:80 /mnt/sdcard vfat
            rw,dirsync,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,uid=1000,gid=1015,fmask=0702,dmask=0702,allow_utime=0020,codepage=cp437,iocharset=iso8859-1,shortname=mixed,utf8,errors=remount-ro








            0 0

tmpfs /mnt/sdcard/.android_secure tmpfs
            ro,relatime,size=0k,mode=000 0 0

/proc/version:

Linux version 3.0.8+ (dengrichuan@wits) (gcc version
            4.5.1 (Sourcery G++ Lite 2010.09-50) ) #13 PREEMPT Thu Feb
            28 14:58:26 CST 2013

/system/build.prop:
# begin build properties

# autogenerated by buildinfo.sh

ro.build.id=JRO03C

ro.build.display.id=JRO03C

ro.build.version.incremental=20130301

ro.build.version.sdk=16

ro.build.version.codename=REL

ro.build.version.release=4.1.1

ro.build.date=Fri Mar 1 10:07:04 CST 2013

ro.build.date.utc=1362103624

ro.build.type=user

ro.build.user=dengrichuan

ro.build.host=wits

ro.build.tags=test-keys

ro.product.model=Prestige 7L_4.1

ro.product.brand=softwinners

ro.product.name=nuclear_me107

ro.product.device=nuclear-me107

ro.product.board=nuclear

ro.product.cpu.abi=armeabi-v7a

ro.product.cpu.abi2=armeabi

ro.product.manufacturer=softwinner

ro.product.locale.language=en

ro.product.locale.region=US

ro.wifi.channels=

ro.board.platform=exDroid

# ro.build.product is obsolete; use
            ro.product.device

ro.build.product=nuclear-me107

# Do not try to parse ro.build.description or
            .fingerprint

ro.build.description=nuclear_me107-user 4.1.1
            JRO03C 20130301 test-keys

ro.build.fingerprint=softwinners/nuclear_me107/nuclear-me107:4.1.1/JRO03C/20130301:user/test-keys

ro.build.characteristics=tablet

# end build properties

#

# ADDITIONAL_BUILD_PROPERTIES

#

ro.com.android.dateformat=MM-dd-yyyy

ro.config.ringtone=Ring_Synth_04.ogg

ro.config.notification_sound=pixiedust.ogg

ro.carrier=unknown

ro.config.alarm_alert=Alarm_Classic.ogg

drm.service.enabled=true

dalvik.vm.heapsize=48m

ro.kernel.android.checkjni=0

persist.sys.timezone=America/New_York

persist.sys.language=en

persist.sys.country=US

wifi.interface=wlan0

wifi.supplicant_scan_interval=15

debug.egl.hw=1

ro.opengles.version=131072

rild.libargs=-d/dev/ttyUSB2

rild.libpath=/system/lib/libsoftwinner-ril.so

keyguard.no_require_sim=true

persist.sys.strictmode.visual=0

persist.sys.strictmode.disable=1

hwui.render_dirty_regions=false

persist.sys.usb.config=mass_storage,adb

ro.property.tabletUI=true

ro.udisk.lable=NUCLEAR

ro.sys.bootfast=true

ro.product.firmware=v1.2

net.bt.name=Android

dalvik.vm.stack-trace-file=/data/anr/traces.txt

MODULES:
While there are too many of these to list one by one, I will list modinfo for one random module I extracted from the device. They are ARMv7 compiled. Also, they're GPL.

filename:      
            ./system-vendor-modules-bma250.ko

license:       






            GPL

description: BMA250 driver

author:        






            Albert Zhang <xu.zhang@bosch-sensortec.com>

srcversion:    
            9E1B44651808AACD6C1459A

alias:         






            i2c:bma250

depends:

vermagic:      
            3.0.8+ preempt mod_unload modversions ARMv7

Other Info

Visual Lands Prestige 7L

Introduction

Problems

Gleaned Information