Hacking I have a list of questions

[sidishere]

I have HBC on the Wii. Thats it! I know literally nothing else. Oh and i have 3.3E. Have installed cIOS36 rev10

1. What app is best to play .iso games from a usb? Or a backup loader.
2. When i run a .dol file in HBC will it save the app? (if i run Mplayer.dol, will it install Mplayer or do i have to run it every time?)
3. Best Anti-Brick apps? I really scared of bricking wii. Parents would kill me.
4. What are some must have apps?
5. Please explain to me what IOS files do/are, why they are illegal here etc.
6. WADs and WAD manager. What apps does wad manager install, is it nessecary?
7. To make a copy of zelda, should i just insert the disk into my comp and make it into an .iso using MagicIso?
8. I really like what Mplayer says it can do. Is there a way i can install it into the wii so i dont have to load the .dol file evertime?

I know i know completely nothing and im asking so many questions and i havent also contributed anything to the community. Im trying to learn all these things but they are really confusing for me...

 

[Hedkandi]

1. I'd say its a matter of personal taste, at the moment i use Ultimate
2. If u mean that it will be installed as a channel, no it wont.
3. PreLoader, Starfall BootMii (isnt released yet)
4. Wad Manager, Custom Wad Manager, FTPii, USB Loader
5. IOS files are pieces of software that enables use of hardware and other software
6. Correct me if mistaken but a Wad Manager does what u asked at point 2, it installs WAD-files as Channels in your system menu. A WAD contains a piece of software (a game or a program) that can be run from your system menu.

 

[tj_cool]

I have HBC on the Wii. Thats it! I know literally nothing else.

1. What app is best to play .iso games from a usb? Or a backup loader
The isb loader is the ONLY app that can do that. v1.5 is the newest version. But there are many custom made loaders based on it. Afaik only the newest Ultimate loader from Wishizzza is based on v1.5
2. When i run a .dol file in HBC will it save the app? (if i run Mplayer.dol, will it install Mplayer or do i have to run it every time?)
You have to run .dol files every time with the Homebrew Channel (HBC). They do not install on the wii NAND. Wad files do
3. Best Anti-Brick apps? I really scared of bricking wii. Parents would kill me. Preloader at the moment
4. What are some must have apps? Depends on what you want. I still advise getting preloader.
5. Please explain to me what IOS files do/are, why they are illegal here etc. IOS = Input/Output system. They are the drivers of the wii and do basically everything. Some are used to boot a game, while others are used by the system menu and shop channel
6. WADs and WAD manager. What apps does wad manager install, is it nessecary? The wad manager install what the wad file contains. This can be a VC/WW game or an IOS or other data.
7. To make a copy of zelda, should i just insert the disk into my comp and make it into an .iso using MagicIso? Unless you have one of the 5 LG drives that can actually read a wii disc, you'll have to dump the game with the wii. The USB loader is the best app to do this

I know i know completely nothing and i'm asking so many questions and i haven't also contributed anything to the community. I'm trying to learn all these things but they are really confusing for me...especially IOS2036rev thingys. Thats ok, theres no need to contribute if you don't even know what everything is. And everyone is confused sometimes

 

[FAST6191]

I figured I would have a go as well.

1. What app is best to play .iso games from a usb? Or a backup loader.
No reason you can not use both. Both work if you do it properly although USB loader probably just pips it.

2. When i run a .dol file in HBC will it save the app? (if i run Mplayer.dol, will it install Mplayer or do i have to run it every time?)

dol files are just that (homebrew code that needs a loader), wad files are what install the channels and even then mplayer can not work in such a capacity (there are forwarder channels though, you still need the relevant files on the SD card but you can launch from the menu).

3. Best Anti-Brick apps? I really scared of bricking wii. Parents would kill me.

Brick 1: out of region update.
Best solution burn with brickblocker, use starfall to get the wii to ignore updates, use a channel that ignores the update flag or see below

Brick 2: bad wad install. The system menu has next to no error protection, you can use preloader to allow you to boot things before the system menu or you can use starfall to allow you to boot a disc and fix things.

Brick 3: like bad wad but even worse, you mess up some low level stuff like the menu, needed IOS or something. Some of the methods above should be able to save you though.

4. What are some must have apps?
Hacking wise. Starfall, wiiscu and possibly preloader.
Homebrew wise. It depends what you want. A fair few emulators, ports of various games, media players and
http://wiibrew.org/ is a good place to start on both counts.
http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=135...t=0&start=0 for a media player.

5. Please explain to me what IOS files do/are, why they are illegal here etc.

IOS files are small self contained operating systems of sorts. They allow developers to use simple commands to interact with the wii and Nintendo to hide how the wii works. As they control most things they are prime targets for hacking (as far as commercial games are concerned anyhow, homebrew is starting to shift away from IOS).
Nobody has made a truly custom IOS yet, the custom IOS aka cIOS are just hacks of the existing IOS modules and as those are copyrighted to Nintendo we can not post them. Installers are OK as long as they patch the file rather than act as a glorified zip file. Note most current cIOS work revolves around hacking an existing IOS and installing that as another one not used by the system then telling games to use those instead, a few hacks though hack the existing IOS modules which is not considered all that safe (although the rewards are quite high if you consider being able to use the disc channel rather than another equally functioning if not better functioning channel a reward). Regarding the rev9/rev10 thing you can install IOS modules to whatever number you like and to avoid confusion here each extra version of this hack also has a number.

6. WADs and WAD manager. What apps does wad manager install, is it nessecary?
dol files and earlier elf files were the homebrew format of choice for the wii.
wad files take this homebrew and wrap it up in a nice format so people can install it on the menu (they give it a banner and some of the other needed info). The commercial wii code also uses WAD files for VC/wiiware and low level stuff so the homebrew/hacking/piracy scene also adopted the format.
Wad manager is just an app that can install them.

7. To make a copy of zelda, should i just insert the disk into my comp and make it into an .iso using MagicIso?

What tj_cool said.

 

[steve-p]

tell us exactly what you want to run, and we can tell you how.

btw, what system-menu version do you have?

 

[sidishere]

Thanks alot guys. Understood a fair bit another question:
8. I really like what Mplayer says it can do. Is there a way i can install it into the wii so i dont have to load the .dol file evertime?

 

[FAST6191]

Mplayer is a huge, complex program and to try and get it all to load from the wii would be extremely hard work and most likely take a good chunk of the very limited space available, not to mention the fairly rapid speed updates would mean a lot of writing to the NAND which is never a good thing.
As mentioned though there are forwarder channels, these install so you can launch from the system menu* and the small loader will load the rest of the relevant files from the SD card.
My apologies for not linking this thread first time around:
http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=114...p;#entry1790633

* if pure convenience is your choice then can I suggest preloader instead, I am not sure if it works with it or not but it could be good.

 

[steve-p]

if your scared shitless of bricking then put as much as possible on the sd and as little as possible in the flash.

 

[sidishere]

thank you FAST6191 and everyone else that helped. looking into custom channels