Kindle eWriter (for consumers)

[ytrewq]

earlier this year an attempt was made for a kindle-USB-hack but it remained unfinished http://www.christian-hoff.com/?p=139

"twobob" recently suggested this hack could be made to work
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...0&postcount=54

so what do other hackers think about this?

also: a US-citizen/hacker could start a project on http://www.kickstarter.com
the aim would be to make it possible for consumers to buy an eWriter that works right out of the box.
with millions of consumers buying eReaders surely there are more than a dozen willing to pay extra for one that can also write?

[geekmaster]

People are using the Nook Simple Touch with a USB keyboard for that purpose. It would be hard to have a successful kickstarter campaign for a "me too" startup trying to compete with all the existing eink ebook readers out there, especially with no exclusive relationship with a book publisher.

There is a Nook Simple Touch thread at MobileRead that discusses the USB OTG hack, with links to the related forum at xda-developers.

[ytrewq]

how far away is a kindle-usb-hack?
would it be a matter of days if the right hacker(s) were sufficiently motivated?

Originally Posted by geekmaster

It would be hard to have a successful kickstarter campaign for a "me too" startup trying to compete with all the existing eink ebook readers out there, especially with no exclusive relationship with a book publisher.

there would be ZERO competition, as there are ZERO eWriters for sale
and the intend is to (re)sell an UPGRADED kindle, not to build a new device

Originally Posted by geekmaster

There is a Nook Simple Touch thread at MobileRead that discusses the USB OTG hack, with links to the related forum at xda-developers.

untill someone will be (re)selling it working out of the box, it's not for consumers

[twobob]

Originally Posted by ytrewq

how far away is a kindle-usb-hack?
would it be a matter of days if the right hacker(s) were sufficiently motivated?

Yes probably EDIT: Hours, with the right dev.

Originally Posted by ytrewq

there would be ZERO competition, as there are ZERO eWriters for sale
and the intend is to (re)sell an UPGRADED kindle, not to build a new device

untill someone will be (re)selling it working out of the box, it's not for consumers

well. its really not that big a shakes now that Chris has come forward with a lot more pertinant and required info. Personally think it would be possible/advisable to port a decent writing application across while one was at it.

Chris has updated the info for the initramfs stuff which was a big stumbling block. I could just throw the changes at buildroot I suppose.

Don't have a mini usb keyboard, or I would have done it before now.
simple as that really. excited about the prospect of mini usb however for the audio support component on the non audio devices.

maybe I'll do a bit of ebay surfing this month see about getting a mini kb for the sake of testing. Not high priority though for me I must say.

[ytrewq]

Originally Posted by twobob

Don't have a mini usb keyboard

why not use an usb-convertor? and how about wireless?

[twobob]

Originally Posted by ytrewq

why not use an usb-convertor? and how about wireless?

eh?

If I had the parts I would have done it. feel free to rummage around in my garage for any bits you think I might have missed.

Alternately simply send me a mini keyboard and I will test it on yours.

Or wait. I will get one soon enough. : D

[choff]

Hi ytrewq,

with regard to the time estimate:

I think 3 full working days is a fair guess, depending on your previous development experience. Though it's hard to tell in advance and depends on what kind of code issues you are going to encounter.

As a prerequisite, you will definitely need a serial connection. You will need it because experience has shown that untested kernels newer work at the first boot :-) . If things can go wrong, they will typically go wrong. So have a serial console prepared in order to analyse the kernel boot output and to see where it breaks down.

On the coding side, there is probably not much to do. Maybe some compilation fixes or code adaptions for USB code that changed between the K4 and the Touch. My ideas about the porting process are described here: http://www.christian-hoff.com/?p=44#comment-236 .

If any difficulties arise in the porting effort, I'll be glad to help.

Hope this helps! Would be great if we could get this ported to the Touch real soon.

Regards,

Chris

[ytrewq]

Originally Posted by twobob

eh?

wouldn't you be able to connect a standard-USB keyboard with a $1 micro-USB-adapter?
or a standard-USB wireless keyboard?

[ytrewq]

Originally Posted by choff

I think 3 full working days is a fair guess, depending on your previous development experience

Thanks for the info; unfortunately I'm just a consumer trying to increase attention for eWriters.
I find it horrible that every single company is still "sabotaging" the eWriter-function.
It's great that hackers are trying to "repair" this; unfortunately there are still just so few of them.

There is also an USB-hack for the NookST and "andrewed" recently reported some information about it's workings
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...&postcount=110
but for a consumer it's still something to dread even with the "non-tech" guide
http://forum.xda-developers.com/wiki.../USB_host_mode

[twobob]

Originally Posted by ytrewq

Thanks for the info; unfortunately I'm just a consumer trying to increase attention for eWriters.
I find it horrible that every single company is still "sabotaging" the eWriter-function.
It's great that hackers are trying to "repair" this; unfortunately there are still just so few of them.

There is also an USB-hack for the NookST and "andrewed" recently reported some information about it's workings
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...&postcount=110
but for a consumer it's still something to dread even with the "non-tech" guide
http://forum.xda-developers.com/wiki.../USB_host_mode

okay. well I ran matchbox / xedit (horrible app but POC) / Xvfb / x11vnc and used my PC keyboard and Mouse but yeah I see your point. If that can be done so easily (on such an underpowered device as the 3) then indeed the better devices can manage something more substantial (SCiTe?)
and with native usb that would be great.

I take your point on the converter perhaps I will grab one for the sake of getting on with this.

Cheers.

[twobob]

after a bit more thought I dug around

The source code for maxwell is open source.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/maxwellwp/
I didn't have a play but it looks to need motif/lesstif someone could maybe tweak that one onto the pile of "best editors"

I think more and more that combo OS solution is not such a bad thing.
Launching debian from the Extensions menu is effortless and solid (if a bit noisy on the stdout) the overhead and initial management are a PITA but selecting a couple of solid applications would be decent interim solution while porting efforts ensue.

I tested a few likely candidates via the armels and could probably get much of this stuff into life natively if it was so required now I have had a chance to play around more with matchbox etc under debian.

Will attach some screeenies of a few apps that are low hanging fruit in action.

Cheers.

[twobob]

next up Kate. Now this one has some real issues atm. I would have to look into also having bits of kde working (klauncher for example) I have documented the errors.

This is the most featured weighing in at around 300mb! however it is a tad sluggish.

Screenies: (I have a pile of these - just stuck up 18 for now)

[twobob]

Also Leafpad and xfte:

Size issues in xfte aside it's actually really fast, leafpad is "as it is" in the other incarnation natively on the touch.

[twobob]

Okay so that covers the easy-win Text editors in debian.

I was thinking that it may be easier to encourage debian to provide extkeyboard support but that is as yet untested and just conjecture given the Xephyr server currently forwards Xevents AIUI.

Next up. External support for the 5 then. Any thoughts anyone?

EDIT:

So, not much feedback.

hmm..
I'll have a play with getting something stupidly large to run
http://www.yolinux.com/TUTORIALS/Lin...iceSuites.html
and http://wiki.scribus.net/canvas/Debian

[pepijndevos]

Are these running on the framebuffer or on X11? I haven't seen X11 on the K4 yet.