I obtained an original Kobo that was Bluetooth only about two years ago. I think it was the N416, but I am not 100% sure since I gave the Kobo to a friend. I also struggled to get it upgraded to version 1.8. What worked for me was to install the ancient version of Kobo desktop in
32-bit Ubuntu 12.04.5 LTS following the instructions in this post:
https://askubuntu.com/questions/3381...ktop-on-ubuntu
From memory:
I tried to install Ubuntu in a virtual machine, but couldn't get the usb to detect the Kobo. What finally worked for me was to get the Live CD iso on a bootable USB using Rufus. Once booted into Ubuntu, I had to manually download and install the dependencies libicu44_4.4.2-2ubuntu0.11.10.1_i386.deb, libssl0.9.8_0.9.8o-7ubuntu3.2_i386.deb, and libzip1_0.9.3-1_i386.deb. The others weren't needed. Then, I installed the kobo-desktop.deb. When kobo-desktop was running and I was signed in, I plugged in the kobo and it automatically downloaded and installed the update 1.8.
Once upgraded to 1.8, the Kobo Bluetooth was very similar to the Kobo Wifi on 1.9.12. I was never able to get the Bluetooth to work properly with any device. I think it was designed to work with Blackberry. Anyway, I could sideload books either manually or using Calibre from my everyday Windows 7 machine, so the bluetooth was unnecessary.
I still have the *.deb files archived if you cannot find them on the net.
NickE