Hacking CFW Comparison Chart

[Itsuki235]

But again, using kosmos app, I mean, let's not even go there.

I stand by my recommendation for you to gain more knowledge and heavily editing the OP so that it reflects the truth.

Let's not even go there because it is worth hiding the fact that NeutOS was coded in a way to be deliberately incompatible with Kosmos anything for some reason? I am not referring to tinfoil here, but NeutOS itself.

Having the excuse that it is designed for tinfoil is insufficent because NeutOS could have let Kosmos Toolbox work normally and yet it does not do so. Kosmos Toolbox works fine with fusee, and there is no fundamental reason why it cannot work with NeutOS. Rebooting to Hekate does not utilize Hekate's fss0= functionality so there is no reason to expect it to break.

The reason why it does not work with something called "Kosmos [X]" is because it is includes "Kosmos" in the name and that is worth pointing out to understand how how NeutOS was coded and by who, and what design philosophy.

So you stand by your recommendation that I should try to obscure the above information by removing that information from my OP? Humm?

If you were referring to the #2 comment about the very close relationship between SX OS's boot process and NeutOS's boot process, that has already been updated.

 

[tom2199]

Look at the source code itself. Changes have been made as recently as an hour ago. The source code is there and you can view it.

I know how to read sources dude, the master branch of neutos is just vanilla atmosphere, without the changes from NEUTOS/borntohonk. So the point still stands that the source of neutos is not published anywhere, at least for 0.12.0.

 

[OrGoN3]

I know how to read sources dude, the master branch of neutos is just vanilla atmosphere, without the changes from NEUTOS/borntohonk. So the point still stands that the source of neutos is not published anywhere, at least for 0.12.0.

Then how can anybody build neutos? Magic? Because I see differences in the files. Specially the makefile.

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Let's not even go there because it is worth hiding the fact that NeutOS was coded in a way to be deliberately incompatible with Kosmos anything for some reason? I am not referring to tinfoil here, but NeutOS itself.

Having the excuse that it is designed for tinfoil is insufficent because NeutOS could have let Kosmos Toolbox work normally and yet it does not do so. Kosmos Toolbox works fine with fusee, and there is no fundamental reason why it cannot work with NeutOS. Rebooting to Hekate does not utilize Hekate's fss0= functionality so there is no reason to expect it to break.

The reason why it does not work with something called "Kosmos [X]" is because it is includes "Kosmos" in the name and that is worth pointing out to understand how how NeutOS was coded and by who, and what design philosophy.

So you stand by your recommendation that I should try to obscure the above information by removing that information from my OP? Humm?

If you were referring to the #2 comment about the very close relationship between SX OS's boot process and NeutOS's boot process, that has already been updated.

I didn't say to obscure anything.

Your edits seem to do a much better job explaining things. Maybe have an icon next to the x in Atmosphere column, letting the user know they'll get those features from the normal sigpatches which is one simple zip file. I know you have notes on the bottom, but something visual would be great since it's mainly a visual table.

 

[Itsuki235]

Your edits seem to do a much better job explaining things. Maybe have an icon next to the x in Atmosphere column, letting the user know they'll get those features from the normal sigpatches which is one simple zip file. I know you have notes on the bottom, but something visual would be great since it's mainly a visual table.

Yes, I completely agree that the notes at the bottom are too difficult to associate with the chart.

They should be next to each other more but the forum's formatting does not let me put them next to each other and still make the image mildly visible without having to click on it, so besides moving them up more, and moving the first set of notes down, I am not sure what could increase legibility

For the X vs --, X should mean a hard block, like impossible or requires recompiling, where as -- should mean theoretically works, but must be configured somewhere. However, there are some problems with that usage of the symbols as well due to mixing apples/oranges.

If you have a link to that magic simple.zip that suddenly makes vanilla atmosphere compatible with tinfoil, provide a link and I can update the notes.

 

[OrGoN3]

Yes, I completely agree that the notes at the bottom are too difficult to associate with the chart.

They should be next to each other more but the forum's formatting does not let me put them next to each other and still make the image mildly visible without having to click on it, so besides moving them up more, and moving the first set of notes down, I am not sure what could increase legibility

For the X vs --, X should mean a hard block, like impossible or requires recompiling, where as -- should mean theoretically works, but must be configured somewhere. However, there are some problems with that usage of the symbols as well due to mixing apples/oranges.

If you have a link to that magic simple.zip that suddenly makes vanilla atmosphere compatible with tinfoil, provide a link and I can update the notes.

They are the normal patches https://gbatemp.net/threads/atmosphere-patches-es-fs-and-loader-fusee_primary-only.562812/

 

[Itsuki235]

They are the normal patches https://gbatemp.net/threads/atmosphere-patches-es-fs-and-loader-fusee_primary-only.562812/

Those do not work for tinfoil on the latest OFW because they do not include the loader_patches from NeutOS (I checked).

 

[OrGoN3]

Those do not work for tinfoil on the latest OFW because they do not include the loader_patches from NeutOS (I checked).

Then you never tried it. It works just fine. You just have to install the latest or second to latest version. Latest is R48. Try it before you bash it. Works just fine.

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Then you never tried it. It works just fine. You just have to install the latest or second to latest version. Latest is R48. Try it before you bash it. Works just fine.

Reports of people using it without the loader patch. There is an AMS loader patch available in the discord. So at most, two zip files.

 

[Itsuki235]

Then you never tried it. It works just fine. You just have to install the latest or second to latest version. Latest is R48. Try it before you bash it. Works just fine.
[...]
Reports of people using it without the loader patch. There is an AMS loader patch available in the discord. So at most, two zip files.

Humm. In other words, you have never actually tried it yourself. As I said, they do work on 9.2.0 for tinfoil 100% and I confirmed that and that is a drag and drop solution for older OFW.

However, updating the firmware to 10.0.1 made certain things that are important related to tinfoil's intended functionality that I shall not discuss no longer work. Even if technically tinfoil launches... that secondary incompatibility is what makes the loader_patches necessary. Edit2: So merely being able to launch the program is insufficient to say that it is compatible per-say. Again, I do not want to elaborate on this, but that functionality break is there and you can confirm it yourself if you want.

Without the loader_patches on OFW 10.0+ tinfoil is not particularly useful and hence makes Atmosphere's and Kosmos's comparability with tinfoil very bad. Atmosphere needs a very special hack in order to get it working which is why it is simply not true that Tinfoil supports vanilla Atmosphere. It DOES on 9.2.0 so that is not a lie per-say, but it doesn't on OFW 10.0+. It is only because of a hack that it works on the latest firmware at all due to Tinfoil destroying itself if it detects loader.kip due to the tinfoil dev's disdain for Kosmos.

Some background, just to double check we are on the same page is that, Atmosphere, in response to OFW 10.0, created a mirror "loader" sysmodule that needs to be patched on OFW 10.0+. There are two ways to patch this, one is that loader.kip I keep mentioning and the second is those ripped NeutOS loader_patches.

Edit:
If tinfoil actually supported OFW 10.0+, not as a result of a hack, but as in actually supported it, then it should just agree to use the loader.kip that everything else uses. Instead it blacklists that method thus creating a situation where if loader.kip is used, *everything* except tinfoil works. It is because the tinfoil devs do not like Kosmos, they went so far as to break the compatibility of their application's intended functionality with the latest official firmware just to make sure it could never be mixed with Kosmos.

Edit3:
It gets worse, because then they can claim that "hey it launches" so it is compatible and pretend they are doing nothing wrong when in reality they went out of their way to make sure that Atmosphere did not work. Consider the facts: NeutOS's design decision to not use loader.kip, tinfoil blacklisting loader.kip, NeutOS applying patches in a closed source boot-time code that shares a dual-boot compatibility issue with SX OS, and NeutOS patches needlessly breaking Kosmos Toolbox.

The relationships between Tinfoil, SX OS, and NeutOS should be starting to become clear by now.

 

[tom2199]

Humm. In other words, you have never actually tried it yourself. As I said, they do work on 9.2.0 for tinfoil 100% and I confirmed that and that is a drag and drop solution for older OFW.

However, updating the firmware to 10.0.1 made certain things that are important related to tinfoil's intended functionality that I shall not discuss no longer work. Even if technically tinfoil launches... that secondary incompatibility is what makes the loader_patches necessary not necessarily launching the program per-say.

Without the loader_patches on OFW 10.0+ tinfoil is not particularly useful and hence makes Atmosphere's and Kosmos's comparability with tinfoil very bad. Atmosphere needs a very special hack in order to get it working which is why it is simply not true that Tinfoil supports vanilla Atmosphere. It DOES on 9.2.0 so that is not a lie per-say, but it doesn't on OFW 10.0+. It is only because of a hack that it works on the latest firmware at all due to Tinfoil destroying itself if it detects loader.kip due to the tinfoil dev's disdain for Kosmos.

Some background, just to double check we are on the same page is that, Atmosphere, in response to OFW 10.0, created a mirror "loader" sysmodule that needs to be patched on OFW 10.0+. There are two ways to patch this, one is that loader.kip I keep mentioning and the second is those ripped NeutOS loader_patches.

Edit:
If tinfoil actually supported OFW 10.0+, not as a result of a hack, but as in actually supported it, then it should just agree to use the loader.kip that everything else uses. Instead it blacklists that method thus creating a situation where if loader.kip is used, *everything* except tinfoil works. It is because the tinfoil devs do not like Kosmos, they went so far as to break the compatibility of their application's intended functionality with the latest official firmware just to make sure it could never be mixed with Kosmos.

Tinfoil works with Atmosphere on 10.0.1, not with the loader.kip from the hekate patches thread, but with the ips patch of the loader which does the same thing as the modified loader.kip, disable the signature checks.

 

[Itsuki235]

Tinfoil works with Atmosphere on 10.0.1, not with the loader.kip from the hekate patches thread, but with the ips patch of the loader which does the same thing as the modified loader.kip, disable the signature checks.

My point is that those patches were hacked from NeutOS which is why it cannot be said that tinfoil "supports" OFW 10.0+ even if it works, because it only works because of a hack.

It was clearly not intended to fully function based upon the design decisions made early on. There is no technical reason for tinfoil to blacklist loader.kip and need special hacked patches or even for NeutOS to have a special boot process for sigpatches for that matter.

Edit:
It works. That does not mean it is intended to work. If it is not intended to work, then it cannot be said to be "supported" to work in any meaningful way. The functionality that was meant to be supported on OFW 10+ was launching, and then not doing anything to obscure their deliberate intent to shift blame for their software not working, that they went out of their way to make incompatible, onto Kosmos.

 

[linuxares]

Atmosphere won't work with Tinfoil without addons basically. Raw Atmosphere won't do it.

 

[Deleted member 512337]

Poor Reinx. Why would somebody still use it?

 

[Itsuki235]

Poor Reinx. Why would somebody still use it?

The same reason to use Awoo.

 

[logandzwon]

The relationships between Tinfoil, SX OS, and NeutOS should be starting to become clear by now.

Yes, obviously the guys behind NeutOS likes Tinfoil and dislikes SX OS. The guy behind Tinfoil dislikes Kosmos users because they constantly have issues, don't bother to read anything about how to fix those issue, and instead bad mouth him for their troubles using his free software.

 

[Itsuki235]

Yes, obviously the guys behind NeutOS likes Tinfoil and dislikes SX OS. The guy behind Tinfoil dislikes Kosmos users because they constantly have issues, don't bother to read anything about how to fix those issue, and instead bad mouth him for their troubles using his free software.

Minor point of correction. Some Kosmos users, like myself, do actually know how to read stuff and fix issues but take exception to the notion the software destroys itself needlessly and the subsequent obfuscation by some Tinfoil supporters that this needless self-destruction is a "requirement" or otherwise "legitimate" in some way.

This is clear from the way the software is coded that it is not necessary. Heck it used to destroy itself if detected an empty SD:/ftp folder.

 

[Schadrach]

NeutOS does not really change anything besides some of the boot code. For that, NeutOS uses shofel2's code for which they claim they do not need to publish the source code.

As a practical mater, if you want to know what the source code for NeutOS, just look at Atmosphere's source tree.

Mirroring the changes identically into their fork is little more than a formality. I am sure lawyers care a lot about these formalities and technicalities, but it is not a big deal to normal people or the community.

I mean, it's more than that, but not a ton more than that. Here's a diff of NEUTOS 0.12.0 release against Atmosphere 0.12.0 release: https://pastebin.com/V1xptZSC

 

[Itsuki235]

I mean, it's more than that, but not a ton more than that. Here's a diff of NEUTOS 0.12.0 release against Atmosphere 0.12.0 release: https://pastebin.com/V1xptZSC

Thanks for posting this. Most of my info is from real-world testing, not looking at source code so it is informative to see it from another perspective.

In your own words, how would you characterize NeutOS in comparison with Atmosphere?

 

[gungunner]

From what I can see in that diff file the only changes are:
Changed name and logo
Changed booting method to shofel2
Removed acid checks
Included ES and FS patches
Enables blanking prodinfo by default

So the only difference (besides name and logo) between NEUTOS and Atmosphere with sigpatches, is that NEUTOS uses shofel2 to boot. I don't know the reason behind this besides not allowing to dual boot SXOS and NEUTOS

 

[logandzwon]

So the only difference (besides name and logo) between NEUTOS and Atmosphere with sigpatches, is that NEUTOS uses shofel2 to boot. I don't know the reason behind this besides not allowing to dual boot SXOS and NEUTOS

It works out of the box with SX Pro, SX Core, and SX lite without modification or addition.

 

[Schadrach]

Thanks for posting this. Most of my info is from real-world testing, not looking at source code so it is informative to see it from another perspective.

In your own words, how would you characterize NeutOS in comparison with Atmosphere?

Haven't dug too deeply into it yet, but the main differences I see at a glance:

1. Uses shofel2-based payload (unsure if it's just shofel2, or if it's been modified in some fashion, haven't dug that deep).
2. Removes option to support custom boot logos.
3. Removes the string FSS0 from fusee-secondary.
4. Removes a 2 second delay during booting in which a splash screen is shown (literally comments out a ShowDisplay and a 2s sleep).
5. Changes several strings to call itself NEUTOS instead of Atmosphere, as well as NEU in place of AMS in the version number.
6. Removes an OFW version number check and an ACID related check from ldr_meta, as I understand it this is what the loader patch does for stock Atmo.

The release info claims "This fork also now has special features in Tinfoil!" which I find interesting. There are about 10 or so Tinfoil features that previously only functioned if a SX license file was present (regardless of what you were actually running), so presumably Tinfoil now also does a check for NEUTOS to enable those features, since they don't appear to be something NEUTOS itself is doing and it definitely isn't packaged with a license.dat file.

I don't know the reason behind this besides not allowing to dual boot SXOS and NEUTOS

Pretty sure you could fix that issue with a hex editor, just change the string "/boot.dat" in the NEUTOS payload to something else, say boof.dat and rename the NEUTOS boot.dat file accordingly. Then the SX payload would give you SX and the "boof" payload would boot NEUTOS. Annoying, but not difficult.