Make bootmii autoboot to file

Is it possible (in future releases) to make bootmii autoboot to an elf/dol file (instead of hbc/sysmenu) ?

The short answer is yes, but it's probably a long way off...

Yes.

If you are willing to sacrifice Homebrew Channel and use (for example) Homebrew Launcher instead.

Basically:

1. Install BootMii
2. Install Homebrew Launcher
3. Uninstall Homebrew Channel (if installed)
4. Use CutomizeMii (PC program) to create a Channel for the desired application (DOL file).
Ensure that you give this Channel the TITLE: JODI
(This is the TITLE used by Homebrew Channel and thus will cause BootMii to think that your app is the Homebrew Channel)
5. Install the channel
6. Set BootMii to load the Homebrew Channel...and it will load your application instead.

I tested this on a 3.2U Wii but it should work for other version too.

Actually now I managed to even get the Hombrew Channel installed while booting to a custom application...

Basically the process is the same as above but a couple of extra steps are added before and after:

Before: (this process creates a modified WAD for the Homebrew Channel)

1. Assuming Homebrew Channel is installed, backup your NAND using a program such as WiiNDv2 (found on WiiBrew site)
2. Extract the NAND using the same program
3. Use the (PC) ShowMiiWads program to view the NAND contents
4. Use the (PC) ShowMiiWad to select the Homebrew Channel and change the TITLE (from JODI) to something else (e.g. JODY)
5. Use the (PC) ShowMiiWad to pack the results (modified Homebrew Channel) to a new WAD

After: (this process installs the modified Homebrew Channel)

6. Install the modified Homebrew Channel using the WAD cretaed in the steps above

When I tried these steps, the first time I loaded the Homebrew Channel it appeard upside down and mirrored. However on successive loads it worked fine with only one side effect...for some reason the Homebrew Channel installation disclaimer (the one about the software being free) always displays when I start the Homebrew Channel before the Homebrew Channel actually starts...This is a little annoying since the disclaimer can not be bypassed, you must wait until the "press (1) to contine" appears.

I believe the scam warning shows up because you did a WAD install, meaning they think it may have been distributed in a fail scam package, as a way of getting round the hackmii installer scam warning. Anyway, nice work. I think an alternative way to do it would be:

Get an older HBC installer (if you have HackMii Installer 0.3 lying around its ideal), run it, use it to install HBC (which will install it with HAXX title ID) then install your custom JODI titled channel. Make sure you have the latest BootMii, and it should boot the JODI title ID, and the HAXX one will also still work fine.

Yes. This should work fine (assuming BootMii does not check for the earlier title)...However it means that you would not have the latest Homebrew Channel.

I don't recall if Homebrew Channel updates itself automatically from the Internet. If it does then you might be able to get the latest version, this way, with the old HAXX title. However, I don't have a WiFi network running right now so I can not try this.

It will prompt you to update, and when you say yes, it will download and run the HackMii Installer, so it will not update the HAXX version, it will delete it and install JODI version. If you are doing what I suggested, you cannot update HBC.

i would go with an entirely different approach. rather than messing with the HBC or any wads, you can just rename the ppcboot file in the bootmii folder and put a new one there. just grab the ppcskel, which is essentially a "hello world" example for apps to talk to mini instead of IOS.

you can already use this code to start any channel which is installed on the wii. so install your homebrew as a channel on the wii and use the code there to boot it.

you can also make it run dols from the SD card. just put some dol loading code into this pppcskel and youre set. it will produce a ppcboot.elf and you put that file into your bootmii folder on your sd card and when you start bootmii, it will start mini, and mini will start your ppcboot.elf and that will load a IOS and your final dol. and you don't need to try to mess with HBC or install anything to your nand

Quote
giantpune
i would go with an entirely different approach. rather than messing with the HBC or any wads, you can just rename the ppcboot file in the bootmii folder and put a new one there. just grab the ppcskel, which is essentially a "hello world" example for apps to talk to mini instead of IOS.

you can already use this code to start any channel which is installed on the wii. so install your homebrew as a channel on the wii and use the code there to boot it.

Indeed, that would be the way to go. Kinda surprised nobody has released an app that can do that yet.

Quote

you can also make it run dols from the SD card. just put some dol loading code into this pppcskel and youre set. it will produce a ppcboot.elf and you put that file into your bootmii folder on your sd card and when you start bootmii, it will start mini, and mini will start your ppcboot.elf and that will load a IOS and your final dol. and you don't need to try to mess with HBC or install anything to your nand

While I know there is code to load a DOL file, I don't know how you would load an IOS?
In a normal case one IOS loads another right? And the Boot2 loads the first IOS. The custom channel booting works because it patches boot2 to load a different channel.

Quote
Daid

Quote
giantpune
i would go with an entirely different approach. rather than messing with the HBC or any wads, you can just rename the ppcboot file in the bootmii folder and put a new one there. just grab the ppcskel, which is essentially a "hello world" example for apps to talk to mini instead of IOS.

you can already use this code to start any channel which is installed on the wii. so install your homebrew as a channel on the wii and use the code there to boot it.

Indeed, that would be the way to go. Kinda surprised nobody has released an app that can do that yet.

This would be pretty cool, and from the sounds of things, quite simple. Why hasn't anyone does it? I have another idea for a possible use for it as well, dunno if it'd work, and don't really want to say in case I look stupid =P

[daid.mine.nu]

This version can boot to any channel. I've only tested it with the mii channel and the HBC. (ini contains a few examples)

Nice work Daid, should come in handy for some people.

Btw, I don't consider this very useful until we have a homebrew way of installing channels.

We do. CustomizeMii has a built-in WiiLoad-based installer, meaning there is a WiiBrew approved way to install custom channels.

Cool, didn't know that. Guess this is more useful then I thought then.

Initially I was looking at the BootMii files to see if I can find the channel title in there (i.e. JODI) and then just change it with a binary editor to make BootMii load a different channel than JODI (Homebrew Channel). In such a case, you are correct that by swapping these boot files you could make BootMii boot any Channel that you want...but I was unable to find the characters JODI in the files.

Re-creating the BootMii files are beyond my programming knowledge. So without the original BootMii source to just compile, I don't know how to change the title selection. I did post a suggestion to make the title part of the configuration file so that you can set the desired Channel that BootMii would boot...This would basically allows you to boot most programs because you can use CustomizeMii to turn most programs into Channels.

If you have details on how to create/modify the ppcboot file, please share.

[forum.wiibrew.org] <- contains the link to a customized ppcboot file for any channel booting. Not sure what else you want. (It's not a full bootmii, as the source for the full ppcboot side was never released as far as I know, so you don't get the menu or nand backup options)

Thanks...Sorry I missed that.

So all I need to do is edit that file and enter the desired title, is that correct? I don't need to re-compile the file or anything?

BTW, I think the file may have a typo. It looks to me like the titles used for HBC are HAXX (old) and JOBI (new). As far as I know the title for the new HBC is JODI (not JOBI).

---

Never mind. Please disregard my previous post about the typo. I re-read the comments once more and saw that the JOBI title was an example of booting a new (future) HBC...which also illustrates how to boot any title you like.

I am going to give it a try now...Thanks for help.

---

Daid,

I looked at the file you suggested but I am still a little confused how to use it.

I edited it an left in the AUTOBOOT1=... and AUTOBOOT2=JODI

Then I saved the file a ppcboot.elf and placed it in my BootMii directory but mow my Wii won't boot.

(I can get it to boot if the SD card is not there but with the card it won't boot)

I noticed that the file is about 100k and the original ppcboot.elf is about 191k.

The beginning of my file looks something like this...

bootmii/ 0000755 0001750 0001750 00000000000 11327354620 011107 5 ustar daid daid bootmii/bootmii.ini 0000644 0001750 0001750 00000000634 11327354620 013255 0 ustar daid daid
AUTOBOOT1=0x10001

AUTOBOOT2=JODI


bootmii/ppcboot.elf 0000755 0001750 0001750 00000134571 11327354256 013270 0 ustar daid daid 
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Is this correct?

I even tried placing the AUTOBOOT1 and AUTOBOOT2 into the bootmii.ini and then making the ppcboot.elf file from the bytes ELF but this did not seem to work either.

I would REALLY appreciate if you could take a few moments and explain it to me because currently I am using my method (posted above) and this means that I have to wait 1 minute for the HBC scam warning to disappear...you method sounds so much better.

If you a too busy to explain, could you please just post a version of the file which just loads JODI (with no other comments for other titles). This should allow me to take the file and use a byte editor to swap JODI with any title I need.

Thanks in advance!

Messages merged, please use the edit button in the future -- Arikado



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/31/2010 06:27AM by Arikado.

The files are only 50kb, not 100kb.

-rw-r--r-- 1 daid daid 50134 2010-01-25 18:45 armboot.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 daid daid   412 2010-01-25 18:49 bootmii.ini
-rwxr-xr-x 1 daid daid 47481 2010-01-25 18:45 ppcboot.elf

I have no idea what happens if you use a title that it cannot find. So that might be the problem.
Also, only edit the ini file. If you mess with the other files then you break more then you fix. If you want some special feature then I can just give you the code I used to compile this.

Best first test would be to try the Mii channel as in the ini file. If that works then my application works.
It might be the case that you still have an old HBC in which case you need to use HAXX as autoboot2.

I have downloaded the indicated file (bootmiiboot.gz) but when I extract it on Windows (using either WinZip or gzip) or a Solaris machine (using gunzip) the result is one big file (approx 100kb) which seems to be a concatenation of the 3 files you indicated.

I am not sure what I am doing wrong. Do I need to somehow process the resulting single bootmiiboot file to get the 3 files or is there some problem with my initial extraction?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/04/2010 11:04AM by LordAshes.