Hi, I have an unknown hardware tv box which automatically loads that company own software which is useless now. That company in China is a gimmick and stopped after 1.5 years.
After opening the box, the microprocessor is C2 microsystem CC1202. There is no more other information. Internet says its a linux software but there is nothing seen as linux. After hardware on, it finds any empty SD card, then loads the tv box own software. I cannot go anywhere into linux.
So I want to delete everything on this tv box and have my own linux/android to browse internet only. Can I do this? Which linux version is best for this?

Not sure if you can do it or not but you can certainly try.

Keep in mind that rooting devices can turn them into a brick if your not good at that sort of thing.

Since it finds any empty SD card; put the .iso image of a Linux distro on the SD card and try to get it to boot so you can get Linux installed. I suggest a lightweight distro like anti-x or lubuntu.

Try to find out more information on the hardware of the T.V. box if you can. That will help us to help you.

Any idea what the company software is called?

If it's Linux you should be able to find the kernel in the boot directory if you can get to it and or the file system.

Does the T.V. box have a usb port?
If so hook a laptop or desktop pc up to it and use a Live Linux CD to see what you can find out.

This article may help others to help you.

https://www.edn.com/electronics-prod...V-applications

Sorry I don't know more, I'm not a expert with hardware:-

I would second the comment on bricking the device. Forget the idea, or brick it.

This may be the cpu.; Go read up on it, https://www.edn.com/electronics-prod...V-applications

It's an media processing ASIC (Application Specific Integrated Circuit)

Yeah, I saw this newspaper clip too but it goes no where. The C2 company also had closed down. If they are open, they also will not help.
this is the problem with lots of China company. They open up doing 1 time business, then change name and act like another company to scam again.
this is the one:
https://www.dhgate.com/product/hot-p...125574945.html

It looks like no other way but to try it. It has 2 usb ports but pressing those function keys during booting does not boot into Linux. I tried the mouse or keyboard in usb ports but did not function. The only way is the tv box own remote control which looks like old tv remote. The software has set view either in HDMI or composite RCA.
After software booted, no way to go into linux so the whole boot, never see any linux. But sources in forum said it is linux os.

So if I manage to install linux, will linux install all the drivers automatically?

Sorry, I translated the electronic technobabble and should have made that clear
basically means it's a limited gpu aimed at broadband streaming only. The rest of the blurb reinforces that, except for this bitRISC = Reduced Instruction Set Computer. Basically there isn't an instruction set that you would expect, only a subset to facilitate the chosen task. My summary evidently wasn't enough for folks. As you have been told, C2 and their site c2micro.com are gone.

I'd think it is some risc or ARM based device but what is a C2? China copy? I'd bet it is an ARM of some kind. Maybe booting to some state would provide more clues. If the chips don't have any detail information on them then we'd suspect it could even be an exact clone of some other system.

You mix up a custom firmware with linux. these are two different shoes

This is what you get with all those smart TVS and such. And cheap china stuff.
No software support, no updates. Wrong calenders in their cpus and such.

I opened up the box, took off the heatsink and saw the label on cpu is CC1202. Maybe they bought from ARM or another company chip and print their own name or model? Many companies always do that.


Sorry, what do you mean? So can I install those Linux on it? Or after installing, its useless to to browse the net?

The C1202 was made by the Company C2 http://www.c2micro.com which incidentally is a broken link, and C2 are now dead and gone.

It's a media processor, similar to a GPU, but focused on data streaming and probably with a few network bits around. It is not a CPU as you know them and I do not believe it's possible to run linux on it You will not get a kernel, a gcc version or a distro for it. It doesn't have an Arm core imho because it has RISC cores, and arm does not. It's more of a DSP than a cpu, and the only thing it's worried about is putting out video.

This idea is a non starter. Sorry for the cold water, but it's better to know that now than waste time on it. There's plenty on the web about them and even a basic search throws up THIS and THAT

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Sigh.

You better had googled the terms ASIC and firmware first.

+1 on business_kid statement

When it would be that easy to iron linux on everything. why do not we have custom roms for all those mediatek smartphones with android? hey its only the kernel which needs to be made. Mediatek ofc hands out one custom rom, aka firmware, that's it.

Also google the term reverse engineering. that should cover also some future questions in this topic.

Wow, I did not see This and That but you found it.
It seems another scam chinaman company. Most local companies in China are same like that. The ones which survives and got bigger are 90% government funded which the ceo are high rank in the party, rolled money into his pocket to become billionaire. The other 10% success companies are belong to the relatives of very high rank party members. In front of a communist citizen, they said everyone is equal but the truth is very tormenting. Who dares to offend the mighty leaders and they will be ended worse. They said Putin and Kim Jong-il is worse, but China made success covering up everything. Remember the massive Beijing vehicles rolling over those boycotts in the past.

Thanks, business kid for your time. I think I will not concentrate this as your advise. Your gpu cpu made sense.

If that box is old and you do manage to get Linux installed the kernel may or may not have modules for it and install them.

Should that end up being the case you could build and complile your own custom kernel and include modules that would show durning the build/compilation.

After the information business_kid shared it doesn't look like it's going to be possible to install Linux after all.

If you happen to have a kernel source handy, a more telling search is this oneWhat is not there is CC12000

I still doubt they invented a new processor just for this device. If they made a clone of some common ARM design then you might get it to work. They could have easily also used only part of the ARM spec of some design and modified it to their use.

maybe this can help:
http://web.archive.org/web/201002072...roducts/cc1200

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