Where's our kobo hacks?

[sark666]

Reading on the front page of mobileread, I see mention of various kindle hacks, so has anyone done something similar for the kobo?

I see that the kindle is linux based; what is the underlying os for the kobo?

[moffattm]

The Kobo runs Linux with BusyBox

[zoran]

Originally Posted by sark666

mention of various kindle hacks, so has anyone done something similar for the kobo?

There is a lot more people participating on kindle forum. And a lot
more wanting to try something on their device. The last kindle
project is fbreader port. Third generation of reader means that it
is in stores longer. Polls say 10% of population in states has device.
Mostly kindle, than ipad, nook...
My impression is that users buy kobo and read on it. If there is no
"hacks" thread post to be a lack of interest for that.

[moffattm]

And also the Kobo is a lot more limited as far as being able to interact with it. Other readers have things that the Kobo doesn't, such as a keyboard, tough screen, speakers, etc. So this limits the sort of things you an do with the device, making it much less desirable to develop on.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by moffattm

And also the Kobo is a lot more limited as far as being able to interact with it. Other readers have things that the Kobo doesn't, such as a keyboard, tough screen, speakers, etc. So this limits the sort of things you an do with the device, making it much less desirable to develop on.

Tough screen? Prior to Pearl, Kindles and Sony Readers (two name two of them) used the exact same Vizplex screen.

[Ronny]

Typo I guess

[moffattm]

Oops! Yeah, I meant "touch" screen!

[s2welee]

I am thinking about trying to change my power off screen. I was thinking it should not be too tough. I could be wrong but I am going to look into it in the next few days.

[Zog]

I've been able to get the cool-er ebook reader firmware to run off an sd card on the Kobo device with some minor modifications to the rcS script and using the "hold down center button while using a pin to do a reset" procedure. After testing and observation its apparent that the latest cool-er firmware and the latest Kobo firmware were created with the same development kit. Same, kernel, same libraries etc. It should be possible to run the cool-er firmware filesystem on the Kobo while keeping the kobo kernel and uboot binaries. The cool-er firmware has some obvious benefits including: the ability to disable auto sleep/shutdown, you can go to a specific page in a book, bookmarks, if you shutdown in a book it comes back to that page when you start up again, more formats supported, etc. If anyone is interested I can give more detailed instructions. Running a filesystem from the sd card is a good way to test without actually flashing a new firmware to the device. It should be obvious that the mp3 player functions on the cool-er don't work on the Kobo and you shouldn't remove the sd card when your running your root filesystem from it. Also, you want to be aware that any DRM on files will probably fail as it becomes a new device. If further testing goes well I many try a full install of the cool-er firmware on the Kobo.
From observation, it should be theoretically possible to create a start up hook in the Kobo that runs the cool-er application from a properly constructed sd card and runs the Kobo application when a normal sd card is used or no card is inserted.

[zoran]

Originally Posted by s2welee

I am thinking about trying to change my power off screen. I was thinking it should not be too tough.

I was keen to change a lot of things first, but later it all became
of no concern. As longer I have the reader, less I care. Cover on
power off? Device is in my closet and only moths can see it. Even
go-to fades away, since I read a book cover to cover, one at a ti-
me. If they try to humor me with wifi reader for free, I'll jump to
busy mode. So far, I'm fine with old one.

[sark666]

The cool-er firmware has some obvious benefits including: the ability to disable auto sleep/shutdown, you can go to a specific page in a book, bookmarks, if you shutdown in a book it comes back to that page when you start up again, more formats supported, etc. If anyone is interested I can give more detailed instructions.

Zog, I would be very interested in this. Just for specific page, bookmarks and resume from last book read would make it worth it.

[moffattm]

Originally Posted by Zog

I've been able to get the cool-er ebook reader firmware to run off an sd card on the Kobo device

Excellent work!

I'd really like to give this a go myself if I could put it all on an SD card and there was no risk of bricking my Kobo.

[JCKobo]

We post all the open source code we've modified on github, including code for a full app that runs on the Kobo Reader. That should be a lot of help to home brewing your own stuff.

You can find the code here:
http://github.com/kobolabs

[JPenguin]

Originally Posted by JCKobo

We post all the open source code we've modified on github, including code for a full app that runs on the Kobo Reader. That should be a lot of help to home brewing your own stuff.

You can find the code here:
http://github.com/kobolabs

Which full app are you referring to? I tried building the poker app but it references "../PluginInterface.h" which isn't included.

If we could build our own "poker" app then we could really start doing some interesting homebrew stuff while still keeping the stock Kobo functionality. This is where my interest in homebrewing would lie, adding additional on device features while keeping the stock firmware rather than replacing it with inkpot or another firmware entirely.

[JCKobo]

Originally Posted by JPenguin

Which full app are you referring to? I tried building the poker app but it references "../PluginInterface.h" which isn't included.

Hmm - that seems to be an oversight. Let me see what I can do to get that added to github.

Any other missing dependencies?