Clara 2E How can I run Cool Reader/Vlasovsoft on Kobo Clara 2e?

[Grzesiek]

Hello everybody!
I bought Kobo Clara 2e recently. Its an excellent reader. But I cannot run the Cool Reader/Vlasovsoft bundle on it. It crashes and I vave to restart the reader. Maybe someone knows how to do it? I'm interested only in the cool reader. The rest of the bundle is not important for me.
Thank you very much for the help :-)

[Szybet]

Siema
Both are discontinued and as the Clara 2e is pretty new it's not supported.

[Grzesiek]

Originally Posted by Szybet

Siema
Both are discontinued and as the Clara 2e is pretty new it's not supported.

Thank you :-)

[JSWolf]

You can run KOReader if you want.

[Grzesiek]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

You can run KOReader if you want.

Thank you. I've got it. I preferred cr...

[Alastair_S]

Originally Posted by Szybet

Siema
Both are discontinued and as the Clara 2e is pretty new it's not supported.

When was the Vlasovsoft bundle discontinued? http://pbchess.vlasovsoft.net/en/index.html may show the current version as dating from 2022 but http://files.vlasovsoft.net/kobo/ (dead link) has an October 2023 version. Has anyone tested the most recent version on a Clara 2e?

[Sixthhokage1]

Just tried that 2023.10.21 release on my Clara 2E. It loads the language select for the initial setup but the touchscreen is unresponsive.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Sixthhokage1

Just tried that 2023.10.21 release on my Clara 2E. It loads the language select for the initial setup but the touchscreen is unresponsive.

Forget Cool Reader. It's dead. Run KOReader instead.

[Sixthhokage1]

"Use KOReader" may or may not be helpful to the OP, but for anyone looking to use the other applications in the Kobo pbchess bundle or applications depending on it for necessary libraries (e.g. the old QtFrotz port) it is not a solution.

[Grzesiek]

Originally Posted by Alastair_S

When was the Vlasovsoft bundle discontinued? http://pbchess.vlasovsoft.net/en/index.html may show the current version as dating from 2022 but http://files.vlasovsoft.net/kobo/ has an October 2023 version. Has anyone tested the most recent version on a Clara 2e?

It does not work. Frozen start screen as usual.

[elaeoth]

Hello, I would like to run pbchess, but it is on Vlasovsoft, is there a way to run it with KOReader or Plato?

[elinkser]

Originally Posted by elaeoth

Hello, I would like to run pbchess, but it is on Vlasovsoft, is there a way to run it with KOReader or Plato?

Well, in theory I guess you could:

1.First write a legacy Qt compatibility layer for those platforms, or

2.Rewrite pbchess as a plugin for those platforms

Or if you're really masochistic, you could try updating the Qt/kobo target of the Vlasovsoft app.

But if you just want to play chess, it would be faster to run gnuchess in KOReader terminal.
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...62&postcount=8

Or even faster to buy a Clara HD which runs pbchess, or even Pocketbook comes with a built-in chess app.


* There are other graphical chess apps in Xorg chroot, Inkbox, SDL, unmerged Plato add-ons, etc, but I wouldn't say they are "install-and-play"...
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...80&postcount=2

[chronoreverse]

Did anyone save the 2023 zip? The link is now dead and it'd be nice to have this.

[edit]
Since there's no working version of this available on the web, I've found that someone built Chess into Plato!
https://github.com/bateast/plato/tree/plato_chess

It requires you to compile it yourself though.

Here are the basic instructions for that (in Linux, WSL2 will work):

sudo apt update && sudo apt install wget curl git pkg-config unzip jq patchelf rustup

git clone -b plato_chess https://github.com/bateast/plato.git
cd plato

wget https://releases.linaro.org/componen...ueabihf.tar.xz
tar xvf gcc-linaro-4.9.4-2017.01-x86_64_arm-linux-gnueabihf.tar.xz
PATH=$PATH:`pwd`/gcc-linaro-4.9.4-2017.01-x86_64_arm-linux-gnueabihfn/bin

curl https://sh.rustup.rs -sSf | sh
echo *Proceed with standard installation*
rustup target add arm-unknown-linux-gnueabihf

./build.sh
./dist.sh

/dist folder goes into .adds
Launch using KFMon or NickelMenu (you can use the One Click Packages and replace the Plato folder in .adds)

[Alastair_S]

Originally Posted by chronoreverse

Did anyone save the 2023 zip? The link is now dead and it'd be nice to have this.

After playing about with the Internet Archive's WayBack Machine I have discovered where 2023.10.21_kobo.zip now resides. Remove the space and try

Spoiler:

http ://pbchess.vlasovsoft.net/files/test/2023.10.21_kobo.zip

There may be later versions but short of changing the date to everything between 2023.10.21 and now I cannot see how we can find out.

[chronoreverse]

Originally Posted by Alastair_S

After playing about with the Internet Archive's WayBack Machine I have discovered where 2023.10.21_kobo.zip now resides. Remove the space and try

Spoiler:

http ://pbchess.vlasovsoft.net/files/test/2023.10.21_kobo.zip

There may be later versions but short of changing the date to everything between 2023.10.21 and now I cannot see how we can find out.

Great sleuthing! I'm happy to report that this version does work with my Revision E hardware Libra 2!