MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - iLiad Anyone thinking about a dotReader port?

wallcraft · 12-07-2006, 12:53 AM

I see that a FBReader port has been attempted several times, so it is obviously more complicated than it seems. Part of the problem is the list of dependencies (libenca, libexpat, libbz2, libstdc++, and libgtk+), but usually all but enca eventually end up in the default software set or in standard repositories. This is the downside of software reuse (otherwise definitely a good thing), particularly for early adopters.

There were port attempts to the Pepper Pad 2 that never worked out until the FBReader developers produced a port to the Pepper Pad 3 (which is actually just a Fedora Core 4 i386 "workstation" rpm). Once that was available as a guide, a Pepper Pad 2 port was quickly produced by a PP2 developer. I take two lessons from this: a) when you are stuck ask the (FBReader) developers for help, and b) sometimes a device's software needs to mature before attempting a significant port. My sense it that the iLiad is "ready" for a FBReader port, but that is easy for me to say. Since there is a cross-compile toolchain available, the FBReader folks may be able to help. I encourage participation in FBReader's Google group where the developers are very responsive and helpful.

12-07-2006, 12:53 AM	#19
wallcraft reader Posts: 6,977 Karma: 5183568 Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Mississippi, USA Device: Kindle 3, Kobo Glo HD	I see that a FBReader port has been attempted several times, so it is obviously more complicated than it seems. Part of the problem is the list of dependencies (libenca, libexpat, libbz2, libstdc++, and libgtk+), but usually all but enca eventually end up in the default software set or in standard repositories. This is the downside of software reuse (otherwise definitely a good thing), particularly for early adopters. There were port attempts to the Pepper Pad 2 that never worked out until the FBReader developers produced a port to the Pepper Pad 3 (which is actually just a Fedora Core 4 i386 "workstation" rpm). Once that was available as a guide, a Pepper Pad 2 port was quickly produced by a PP2 developer. I take two lessons from this: a) when you are stuck ask the (FBReader) developers for help, and b) sometimes a device's software needs to mature before attempting a significant port. My sense it that the iLiad is "ready" for a FBReader port, but that is easy for me to say. Since there is a cross-compile toolchain available, the FBReader folks may be able to help. I encourage participation in FBReader's Google group where the developers are very responsive and helpful.