InkBox: a new open-source OS and eBook reader based on Qt5

[NiMa]

https://youtu.be/LCJrD-XcuPM

Hello, thanks for trying it out.
Please join the Discord server if you want to update to a development version (see video above).

[mastnacek]

NiMa: can you send me link? I like to try new things. Thank you for your work.

[NiMa]

According to some reports, it seems InkBox OS is compatible with the Tolino Shine original. Users will have to flash the N613 image onto the internal microSD card.

----

2.0 release is due... s o o n.

[techne]

Hi NiMa, first I would like to thank you for developing the most advanced free software OS for eReader devices.

Would it be possible to set up a TLS cert for your host of ISOs before the 2.0 release? The way they are hosted today seems inherently unsafe.
Also Element/matrix.org is a FOSS alternative to Discord (proprietary, data-mining) that a lot of projects use today for development, it has been vastly improved over the last years. It seems an Alpine Linux-based distro like InkBox would fit in far more to the community over on matrix than the mainly gamer, corporate entertainment-focused one of Discord.

[NiMa]

This is probably the biggest release of InkBox OS ever. It took so much time since 1.9 but I hope you will find it was worth it.
Thanks to @Szybet for his numerous contributions to the project.

Changelog:

- Kindle Touch (KT) support (installation guide on request ; no release image available at the moment)
- Signed custom user applications ('user apps') support (@Szybet) which you can install from there: https://github.com/Kobo-InkBox/user-applications . Some of them include 'Maps', 'Sketch' or 'sanki'.
- Improved virtual keyboard
- General UI design improvements
- Completely overhauled home page and library browser, with 'Recent books' and 'Pinned books'
- Folders support in local library browser
- Highlighting support (experimental) and option to export highlights as JSON file
- Fix for special characters sometimes not displaying properly (@Szybet)
- Completely overhauled power daemon (@Szybet)
- Completely overhauled Wi-Fi framework (@Szybet & @tux-linux)
- Wi-Fi support for i.MX507 devices (N705, N905C, N613)
- Better virtual keyboard in X11/KoBox
- New 'Line spacing' and 'Margins' options in Reader
- 'To-Do' application for checklists
- 'Qalculate' application for complex mathematic calculations
- Improved lockscreen experience (@Szybet & @tux-linux)
- Improved Reader framework
- Update system improvements
- Fix for screen 'freezing' when X11 is enabled on some devices
- Kernel namespaces support
- Completely overhauled system initialization program
- Gutenberg: prompt to ask whether or not to sync before doing so
- N306: Support for keyboard and mouse via USB OTG (@Szybet)
- N306: Support for custom device cases (@Szybet)
- 8 days of excruciating pain discovering and fixing bugs that just seemed to have come from nowhere specifically to bother us

Presentation video:


Downloadable images are available here: https://inkbox.ddns.net/downloads.html

Enjoy

[ab78727]

This release looks amazing. I've started to search for compatible used devices that I can buy to try it out. Thank you.

[NiMa]

We have ported sff to InkBox OS as InkBox Terminal. It is a Qt-native app using libvterm to interact with a virtual tty.
The default bundle includes an ssh client, thus, provided your device is rooted, you could ssh to the root filesystem. If not, you could still interact with another host on your network or on the Internet.

Video:


I even got gomuks to work on it:
https://youtube.com/shorts/wEFmNX0sAPk

It can be downloaded from there: https://github.com/Kobo-InkBox/user-applications
Enjoy

[CatRovacer]

Hi Nicolas!
I have 2 questions:
1. Where i can read howto modify and build image from github repo? Also particularly for emu
2. for emulator i cant find http://23.163.0.39/bundles/inkbox/native/update/2.0/emu/update-2.0.upd.isa"

When running stri at kernel build stage released message:
You must specify the 'INIT_GCC' and 'INIT_STRIP' variables

It path?

[Szybet]

Hi

1. There is no how to, you can ask me or nicolas.

Emu is working really shitty for inkbox, as you can see it doesnt even have a 2.0 release, because of qemu being just bad software at this level of complexity of emulating things. I won't help with it and nicolas propably too.

as for kernel compiling go back a few commits

[qbit]

Hi, guys and thanks for an amazing work on the OS for Kobos. To me the task would look too big to even try
I would like to play with the code. Are there any instructions on how to set up proper cross compiler /emulator and how to build an image?

If no, but there is someone who can tell the details, I can can prepare such tutorial for the community

[Szybet]

A bit here
https://github.com/Szybet/niAudio/bl...bo/qt-setup.md
https://github.com/Szybet/niAudio/blob/main/inkbox.md

Creating the image is automated
https://github.com/Kobo-InkBox/imgtool

We use one compiler already "compiled" for compability reasons. Here is the one for Qt:
https://github.com/Kobo-InkBox/compiled-binaries
The rest is in the kernel repo

You should consider joining or discord / matrix server. I'm there more often and can help you with any question or problem regarding inkbox os

[NiMa]

I have decided to release a beta image of InkBox OS for the Kobo Clara HD (N249). It is on version 2.0, but with development commits that were added after that release.
The system works fine enough to be usable by most users, but the eInk screen's performance is not very good. This is probably due to a problem in the framebuffer rendering API that we will hopefully fix soon. That said, it's probably still something the average user can cope with.
I hope that you will enjoy it and that you will post your impressions somewhere, either here or on our Discord/Matrix servers. As usual, we are not to be considered responsible for any damage done to your device before, during or after the install process.

Link: http://pkgs-inkbox.duckdns.org:25560...box-2.0-dev.xz

EDIT: Please read this before installing or you could permanently damage your device.

Enjoy

[elinkser]

The display never activated on my Clara, though connecting the USB cable opened a whole bunch of folders on my file explorer on ny laptop. At one point the power LED of the device lit up for a second, but not every time.

Weird that it works on other peoples' Clara but not on mine - same as I had with PostmarketOS, so...maybe it's a glitchy device/storage. But my stock Kobo OS booted right up and I was back in business, thankfully.

[NiMa]

Hmm, strange...
What is your Clara's board ID?
Also, you may have triggered USB download mode. Ensure you don't press too long on the power button on boot.

Also, what exactly were those 'folders' you talked about?

Feel free to join us on Matrix or Discord, maybe debugging it would be easier that way.

Thanks for trying it out !

[NiLuJe]

The output of ntx_hwconfig -s /dev/mmcblk0 2>/dev/null would be helpful, too.