Adobe drm-system on Kobo

[patrik]

Inspired by NiMa's success with xorg I'm pondering if it's possible to get a practicle solution for a full adobe drm environment on a Kobo.

(With that I mean to be able to buy adobe drm ebooks and borrow library ebooks directly from the ereader.)

One roundabout way could be to install wine and Sony Reader for PC (or ADE).

We got some brilliant people here, can you see a feasable and pragmatic way to make this happen?

(FWIW I know plenty of people choosing Pocketbook before Kobo just because of this.)

[NiMa]

Originally Posted by patrik

Inspired by NiMa's success with xorg I'm pondering if it's possible to get a practicle solution for a full adobe drm environment on a Kobo.

(With that I mean to be able to buy adobe drm ebooks and borrow library ebooks directly from the ereader.)

One roundabout way could be to install wine and Sony Reader for PC (or ADE).

We got some brilliant people here, can you see a feasable and pragmatic way to make this happen?

(FWIW I know plenty of people choosing Pocketbook before Kobo just because of this.)

Wine would not be possible, unfortunately. As it *could* *maybe* run, certainly ADE won't, because it has been compiled for x86_64.
I'm currently testing things with QEMU (got Windows 3.1 emulated on a Kobo yesterday!) and ReactOS (open-source Windows clone) which *could* *maybe* used in a pratical way.
Still testing...
But maybe are there alternatives to ADE for Linux that I don't know of?

[pazos]

Originally Posted by patrik

Inspired by NiMa's success with xorg I'm pondering if it's possible to get a practicle solution for a full adobe drm environment on a Kobo.

(With that I mean to be able to buy adobe drm ebooks and borrow library ebooks directly from the ereader.)

One roundabout way could be to install wine and Sony Reader for PC (or ADE).

We got some brilliant people here, can you see a feasable and pragmatic way to make this happen?

(FWIW I know plenty of people choosing Pocketbook before Kobo just because of this.)

Nope, it is unfeasible in the best case scenario and probably impossible.

Wine requires x86 PEs and a underlying linux system on the host. That would require to run an emulated linux x86 under qemu and run wine inside that VM. I cannot say it is impossible but running a x86 linux target on a arm host would be painfully slow (hours? to boot) and would require more storage than most Kobos have.

Even then you would need to tweak the build of qemu-system-arm to display the VM contents on e-ink and, in case you get that to work, you'll only be able to deDRM, but not to interact with ascm files in any way on the host.

[NiMa]

Originally Posted by pazos

Nope, it is unfeasible in the best case scenario and probably impossible.

Wine requires x86 PEs and a underlying linux system on the host. That would require to run an emulated linux x86 under qemu and run wine inside that VM. I cannot say it is impossible but running a x86 linux target on a arm host would be painfully slow (hours? to boot) and would require more storage than most Kobos have.

Even then you would need to tweak the build of qemu-system-arm to display the VM contents on e-ink and, in case you get that to work, you'll only be able to deDRM, but not to interact with ascm files in any way on the host.

I've not tried with ARM, but for x86_64 QEMU, it runs effortlessly on my Glo HD (picture attached)

[pazos]

duh!.

I was meant to say qemu-system-x86, not qemu-system-arm.

Anyways, of course if you run qemu under X you won't need to tweak qemu itself. You just need to run X on the host + qemu on the host + linux distro on qemu (including its own X) + apps on top of that.

Again, I cannot assert it is impossible, but keep in mind that the whole Win3.1 size is less than the x86 linux kernel you'll need to bootstrap to run a distro that's able to run wine. AFAICT alpine on x86 has wine packages so... maybe ???

[NiMa]

Originally Posted by pazos

duh!.

I was meant to say qemu-system-x86, not qemu-system-arm.

Anyways, of course if you run qemu under X you won't need to tweak qemu itself. You just need to run X on the host + qemu on the host + linux distro on qemu (including its own X) + apps on top of that.

Again, I cannot assert it is impossible, but keep in mind that the whole Win3.1 size is less than the x86 linux kernel you'll need to bootstrap to run a distro that's able to run wine. AFAICT alpine on x86 has wine packages so... maybe ???

I'm testing things with ReactOS at the moment, can't say if it will work, but if it does, then we'd have a (relatively) useful VM already in x86.

[NiMa]

Originally Posted by NiMa

I'm testing things with ReactOS at the moment, can't say if it will work, but if it does, then we'd have a (relatively) useful VM already in x86.

ReactOS update: it hung at startup. Not really a surprise. Trying MicroXP now... I hope that that will work... Because I think we could install ADE in there...!

[NiMa]

Originally Posted by NiMa

ReactOS update: it hung at startup. Not really a surprise. Trying MicroXP now... I hope that that will work... Because I think we could install ADE in there...!

Well now it's working on my Libra! Look!

[patrik]

Wow, nicely done.

[Uncle Robin]

Originally Posted by NiMa

Well now it's working on my Libra! Look!

This probably a really dumb question, but how do you get the colors showing on your eink Libra?

[NiMa]

Originally Posted by Uncle Robin

This probably a really dumb question, but how do you get the colors showing on your eink Libra?

It's a screenshot, simply
Underneath that is still a color Xorg server...

[NiMa]

Originally Posted by patrik

Wow, nicely done.

Next step is to succeed in installing ADE in it... It requires .NET framework 3.5, however this is ReactOS... And ReactOS doesn't like .NET
It seems possible installing some versions though (4.2.1)
Will try and see what it does

If it doesn't work then we'll have to move on to maybe a light Windows 7 ISO (or maybe another XP ?)

If someone wants to try it on his Kobo, first follow my X.org tutorial, then install those packages:

apk add qemu-system-x86_64 qemu-ui-gtk

It should be good to go...

[patrik]

It's probably a lot easier to skip ADE and use Sony Reader for PC instead.

I used to use ADE in Wine, but every other update (of wine) made it stop working, could be fixed, but a hazle.

https://www.sony.com/electronics/sup...loads/W0010082

Thanks for doing this!

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by NiMa

Wine would not be possible, unfortunately. As it *could* *maybe* run, certainly ADE won't, because it has been compiled for x86_64.
I'm currently testing things with QEMU (got Windows 3.1 emulated on a Kobo yesterday!) and ReactOS (open-source Windows clone) which *could* *maybe* used in a pratical way.
Still testing...
But maybe are there alternatives to ADE for Linux that I don't know of?

ADE 2.0.1 for Windows is a 32-bit program. But it won't work with Windows 3.1.

To do it, you would need Wine to install ADE 2.0.1. But you would also need to emulate an X86 processor. So really, Even if it's doable, it's going to be a right mess. Don't do it.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by patrik

It's probably a lot easier to skip ADE and use Sony Reader for PC instead.

I used to use ADE in Wine, but every other update (of wine) made it stop working, could be fixed, but a hazle.

https://www.sony.com/electronics/sup...loads/W0010082

Thanks for doing this!

Sony Reader for PC would need to be authorized to all RMSDK to deal with the DRM. Sony is out of the eBook market. So that's not going to happen. Plus, the version of RMSDK is too old. The oldest ADE you should be using is 2.0.1.