Thread: KoBox, or how to run X.org and Firefox on your Kobo
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Old 02-04-2021, 10:12 AM   #181
pazos
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Posts: 1,406
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Join Date: Apr 2014
Device: BQ Cervantes 4
Quote:
Originally Posted by NiMa View Post
Update:
KoBox is on a big overhaul now. After extensive testing on a Kobo Mini, it seems that the latest version (3.13) of the minirootfs segfaults BusyBox each time (probably due to kernel version) I try to run a command and therefore it is unusable.
To extend support to these devices, we've decided with @fermino and @Elektron to build a new rootfs from scratch, with custom (and natively!) built musl-libc and BusyBox so that it can run fine on the Kobo Mini (and probably Touch and Glo).

Also, I (and maybe others) will compile custom apk packages with optimized support for each device (yeah, we won't leave our Kobos sleeping at night )

Distribution images would be provided for each device, containing the optimized binaries and musl-libc/BusyBox. It will still include Xorg, a web browser and maybe some utilities (though the web browser may take some time to compile natively )
I'll also write a bootstrap script to build them automatically.
We could have went to the cross-compile route, but as BusyBox worked only when compiling it natively on the Mini, I'm not sure that it will work for other packages...

So if you have a Kobo, knowledge about Linux and compiling from source and would be willing to spent some hours sometimes building packages, you're welcome to do so!
We've created a GitHub organization here: https://github.com/Alpine-KoBox
And if it is possible for you, please join us over at Discord: https://discord.gg/FTAMN8wP6d in the Kobo Devs' corner.
Most of the stuff you're planing to do is useless. All kobos from Kobo Touch onwards (with fw: > 2) share the same ABI: armhf, which is already supported by alpine.

About building them natively instead of cross compiling: it is painfully slow and won't work for huge packages. The build system will require a few GB of RAM available to build them and will start to swap to disk a LOT wearing your internal storage or just go OOM if there's no swap enabled.

Building packages natively won't help to make them work if that's happen because a specific kernel in a specific FW for a specific device lacks a feature, like devtmpfs, that your rootfs is going to use.

My suggestion: update your Mini FW to latest tested version (4.x). It should have a "modern" kernel with features on par with other boards. Busybox shouldn't segfault there.
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