Turn your Kobo into a Debian Linux tablet

[mr_nobody]

Originally Posted by Mr_Ploppy

I took the 2013-08-17_kobo_debian.img

So look at this site for info.
https://sites.google.com/site/gibekm...kobo-as-tablet

There is a link
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/snsdg1c5cg21kws/3LfelXgbGe
download the 3 parts, to give you a 7.8gb image.

Installation:

1.Get empty SD card (8GB or more).
2.Download and extract image file. Flash it to SD card with Win32DiskImager (Windows) or dd (Unix).
3.Open the back cover of the Kobo. Replace original SD card with new one.

The mistake I made was when the image was installed I went into Nickle and entered my Kobo details, which ment it looked at kobo website, and updated the image and wiped the Debian part out.

Runs fine. It dual boots, only other issue I noticed is that if your in nickle and turn the unit off it boots into the dual boot again, and you have to turn it off again to get it to fully turn off.

Thanks for pulling this info together. A couple quick questions if I may:

1. So you didn't have to do any hex editing on the image for it to work on the mini?

2. Did you use an 8gb or 16 gb card? I guess to be safe it's better to go with 16 or is 8 okay?

Thanks.

[Fernando Negro]

Originally Posted by Mr_Ploppy

There you go Fernando, quick demo of it running. If you want more let me know.

http://youtu.be/8rkoHcJGo18

Ah.

Thank you so much, Mr_Ploppy!

That's exactly what I wanted to see! (And, it's more than enough.)

(You even showed one of the uses I thought of, for the tablet - that is to play chess on it.)

I hope that video is useful also to other people, who want to see how it works.

Thanks, again. (And, I hope it was not too much work for you, making such video...)

If you ever come to Portugal, let me know, and I'll buy you a beer.

Take care.

[Mr_Ploppy]

Originally Posted by mr_nobody

Thanks for pulling this info together. A couple quick questions if I may:

1. So you didn't have to do any hex editing on the image for it to work on the mini?

2. Did you use an 8gb or 16 gb card? I guess to be safe it's better to go with 16 or is 8 okay?

Thanks.

1. No Hex editing needed. worked straight out the box
I think the hex editing is if you use someone else backup image and you want to change it to your serial number. But I think thats only if you want to connect to kobo's website for firmware updates ect.
The nickle that is on the debian image does not connect to Kobo, you have to upload your books manually.

2. I used a 16gb Sd card, prob more free space then necessary.

I'm sure you can add app to it, but not got that far yet. Still learning

[mr_nobody]

Thanks for the info, very helpful!

[Mr_Ploppy]

Just wandering if its just me. But on Xpuzzle if I try the jigsaw.

1- Yes its is very tricky to get the peices to move where you want them but the kobo mini is tiny ok.

B - The main issue is that some of the peices are the wrong way around/ inverted. So you can never finish the puzzle cause the peices don't all fit together.

Is this just me ?

[Mr_Ploppy]

If you look on Mareks original page he has screen shots.

https://sites.google.com/site/gibekm...attredirects=0

There is one of xpuzzle.
Now look at the 2 pieces at the bottom middle, of the womans head.

The one of the left is half her head and the bit on the right is the other half, but they dont join together as the one on the right is inverted.

So is there something you press to flip the peice over ????

[MarekGibek]

Originally Posted by Mr_Ploppy

So is there something you press to flip the peice over ????

You are right. This game is unsolvable. Probably there is context menu over a piece and right mouse button click emulation is missing. I placed the game there because it is so nice looking

You can try to configure x11 with a different touch driver. Some of them has right mouse button emulation when you keep your finger pressed for some time.

[sambo.]

any idea if this would work on an Aura HD?

[sunspot]

Thanks Marek!!
1)
My Kobo Touch N705C loads Debian and the wifi finds an address from my router but when I ping that address from my Mac I get no response.
Telnet and ftp to that address also do nothing.
I do
ps aux
and see no reference to vsftpd or similar.
I expected to telnet ok.......????

2)
I wired all 3 serial ports in the Touch.
Only the port nearest to the USB port does anything
In a terminal program on my Mac I see boot-up messages on it at 115200 baud - but I cannot type anything in.

If I do
sudo cat /dev/ttymxc0 in the Debian terminal I can type
hello <return> on the Mac
and see hello in the Debian terminal


I really need telnet and ftp - have I missed the point?

[Aydan]

sunspot, you need to login to the terminal first. Are you using a 3.3V level serial adapter? If not you might have killed the rx side of the kobo.

Regards
Aydan

[sunspot]

Aydan
Thanks

I am using a ttl to USB that is set to 3.3 v volts. I proved it was OK before use with a 'scope.
I can send "hello" from Mac to Kobo as I said above.

I am never offered a log in option

I see
Hit any key to stop autoboot: 0
in the first boot sequence.
I hit keys to no effect.
Must you hit a key to see a log in request?

=======================================
At Debian power down I see ---


xinit: connection to X server lost

waiting for X server to shut down Server terminated successfully (0). Closing log file.

E-ink display autoupdate disabled.
dosfsck 3.0.6, 04 Oct 2009, FAT32, LFN
umount: none busy - remounted read-only
There are differences between boot sector and its backup.
Differences: (offsetriginal/backup)
65:01/00
Not automatically fixing this.
The system is going down NOW!
Sent SIGTERM to all processes
Sent SIGKILL to all processes
Requesting system poweroff
Power down.

================================================== =====
Switch on then see ---

U-Boot 2009.08-dirty-svn ( 8月 29 2012 - 11:15:18)

CPU: Freescale i.MX50 family 1.1V at 800 MHz
mx50 pll1: 800MHz
mx50 pll2: 400MHz
mx50 pll3: 216MHz
ipg clock : 66666666Hz
ipg per clock : 66666666Hz
uart clock : 24000000Hz
ahb clock : 133333333Hz
axi_a clock : 400000000Hz
axi_b clock : 200000000Hz
weim_clock : 100000000Hz
ddr clock : 200000000Hz
esdhc1 clock : 80000000Hz
esdhc2 clock : 80000000Hz
esdhc3 clock : 80000000Hz
esdhc4 clock : 80000000Hz
Board: MX50 RDP board
Boot Reason: [POR]
Boot Device: SD
I2C: ready
DRAM: 256 MB
MMC: FSL_ESDHC: 0, FSL_ESDHC: 1, FSL_ESDHC: 2
In: serial
Out: serial
Err: serial
[_get_sd_number] g_sd_number:0

MMC read: dev # 0, block # 1023, count 1 partition # 0 ...
1 blocks read: OK

MMC read: dev # 0, block # 1024, count 1 partition # 0 ...
1 blocks read: OK
no ramdisk env ,default rd->70d00000

MMC read: dev # 0, block # 8191, count 1 partition # 0 ...
1 blocks read: OK
no ramdisk image signature ! skip load initrd !

MMC read: dev # 0, block # 12287, count 1 partition # 0 ...
1 blocks read: OK
no ramdisk image signature ! skip load initrd !
ram p=70000000,size=268435456

MMC read: dev # 0, block # 18431, count 1 partition # 0 ...
1 blocks read: OK
no "logo" bin header

MMC read: dev # 0, block # 14335, count 1 partition # 0 ...
1 blocks read: OK

MMC read: dev # 0, block # 14336, count 2076 partition # 0 ...
2076 blocks read: OK
Kernel RAM visiable size=254M->254M
init TPS65185 power ...
Hit any key to stop autoboot: 0

MMC read: dev # 0, block # 2047, count 1 partition # 0 ...
1 blocks read: OK
no kernel image signature !

MMC read: dev # 0, block # 2048, count 8192 partition # 0 ...
8192 blocks read: OK
## Booting kernel from Legacy Image at 70800000 ...
Image Name: r?_#33 May 10 15:21:51
Created: 2013-05-10 13:21:55 UTC
Image Type: ARM Linux Kernel Image (uncompressed)
Data Size: 1886500 Bytes = 1.8 MB
Load Address: 70008000
Entry Point: 70008000
Loading Kernel Image ... OK
OK

Starting kernel ...

Uncompressing Linux... done, booting the kernel.
[zForce_ir_touch_recv_data-164] command BootComplete (0)...
NtxHwCfg_GetCfgFldStrVal:[WARNING]Config version too old !! Please update config file !!
1+0 records in
1+0 records out
512 bytes (512B) copied, 0.000271 seconds, 1.8MB/s
cannot open /dev/null
[PROGRESS_BAR-2857] No progess ...
E-ink display autoupdate enabled.
init kbd.
init mouse failed.
[zForce_ir_touch_recv_data-186] command overrun (1) ...

================================================== =====
Press computer icon then see -

NtxHwCfg_GetCfgFldStrVal:[WARNING]Config version too old !! Please update config file !!
1+0 records in
1+0 records out
512 bytes (512B) copied, 0.000271 seconds, 1.8MB/s
cannot open /dev/null
[PROGRESS_BAR-2857] No progess ...
E-ink display autoupdate enabled.
init kbd.
init mouse failed.
[zForce_ir_touch_recv_data-186] command overrun (1) ...
E-ink display autoupdate disabled.
dosfsck 3.0.6, 04 Oct 2009, FAT32, LFN
There are differences between boot sector and its backup.
Differences: (offsetriginal/backup)
65:01/00
Not automatically fixing this.
/dev/mmcblk0p2: 108 files, 2021/523004 clusters
FAT: utf8 is not a recommended IO charset for FAT filesystems, filesystem will be case sensitive!
swapon: /dev/mmcblk0p3: Invalid argument
E-ink display autoupdate enabled.
E-ink display autoupdate enabled.


X.Org X Server 1.12.4
Release Date: 2012-08-27
X Protocol Version 11, Revision 0
Build Operating System: Linux 2.6.32 armv5tel Debian
Current Operating System: Linux kobo 2.6.35.3-850-gbc67621+ #33 PREEMPT Fri May 10 15:21:51 CEST 2013 armv7l
Kernel command line: console=ttymxc0,115200 rootwait rw quiet lpj=3997696 root=/dev/mmcblk0p1 rootfstype=ext4 hwcfg_p=0x7ffffe0
0 hwcfg_sz=512 waveform_p=0x7fefc600 waveform_sz=1062912 mem=254M
Build Date: 17 April 2013 11:27:49AM
xorg-server 2:1.12.4-6 (Julien Cristau <jcristau@debian.org>)
Current version of pixman: 0.26.0
Before reporting problems, check http://wiki.x.org
to make sure that you have the latest version.
Markers: (--) probed, (**) from config file, (==) default setting,
(++) from command line, (!!) notice, (II) informational,
(WW) warning, (EE) error, (NI) not implemented, (??) unknown.
(==) Log file: "/var/log/Xorg.0.log", Time: Mon Aug 1 20:18:50 2011
(==) Using config file: "/etc/X11/xorg.conf"
(==) Using system config directory "/usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d"

[Aydan]

Then you're probably missing an entry in /etc/inittab which should say something like this:

T0:2345:respawn:/sbin/getty -L ttymxc0 115200 vt100

Regards
Aydan

[fastrobot]

I'm curious about this hack.
If it's really doing what I think it is-- it's worth it to buy a KOBO in order to be able to do it!

Can anyone tell me why the debian installation is made a chroot environent rather than just running a normal root environment? Is it because there are two different linux environments running and the hack tries to hide the default one?

The reason I ask:
I had a Sony (now bricked) that had some bugs in the kernel, and did not have kexec() so I couldn't replace the kernel without flashing it -- and sony didn't release the correct boot code to properly build a bootable image. -- There was no way to repair or upgrade the kernel, and although I could fix most bugs by creating loadable kernel modules -- I could not fix the power management issues because they were built into the kernel and not modules. So it had a maximum of 6 hours runtime.

I don't want to buy another reader with the same problem.... I want to be able to really FIX bugs in the kernel when I find them and I'm not sure if the hack shown in this thread is just replacing kernel modules -- or is replacing the whole kernel itself. Does anyone know for sure that KOBO is the way to go?

I've been trying to look at the internals of the KOBO mini, glo, and touch to see how they are made to see if I can figure it out; and it seems like the mini and GLO -- both only have the micro SD and no sign of an external flash rom to the arm processor; so that I assume replacing the SD on those would replace the kernel and boot image. But the touch looks like it might have a ROM soldered to the board -- so I am not sure.

On the sony, I wrote a VT52 terminal emulator and a morse code keyboard which are quite fast and allow typing without even looking at the screen. (It's just a rhythm of taps and you can get fast at it with practice...)

If I understood this thread correctly, the touchscreen is capable of detecting two simultaneous finger presses on the screen?

If that's true, I should be trivial to adapt the code I have for international morse code with special computer prosigns to run on the KOBO -- but It's not fast, unless the button presses are reliable for dot and dash without the screen "missing" any.

How reliably does the screens for the various KOBO's detect touches? I heard some reviews that the KOBO AURA HD tends to miss them several times which would be horrid. But what about the Glo, mini, and touch? which is the best?

[KevinShort]

Originally Posted by fastrobot

I'm curious about this hack.
If it's really doing what I think it is-- it's worth it to buy a KOBO in order to be able to do it!

Can anyone tell me why the debian installation is made a chroot environent rather than just running a normal root environment? Is it because there are two different linux environments running and the hack tries to hide the default one?

. . .

Debian is inside a chroot just so you can still use the default Kobo UI. The kernel is stored on the internal SD card on the Glo, Mini, and newer Touch models. Multi-touch is possible on the Glo, Mini, Touch, and Aura HD with a custom kernel. As for how reliable the touch screen is, I couldn't say. The Kobo interface does miss touches every now and then, but I don't know if that's the fault of the screen or of Kobo's software.

[mmax]

Hi,

I also want to turn my Kobo mini into a Linux tablet but just dumping the image from mareks website onto a 16GB SD Card doesn't work. After Running ntx_hwconfig commands via telnet on th Kobo I figured yout that PCB is "E50610" and RAMType is "K4X2G323PC" ... but I don't know if that's important, maybe mareks image doesn't fit to my hardware.

After downloading and extracting mareks image I disk-dumped it on the memory card via
"dd if=2013-08-17_kobo_debian.img of=/dev/mmcblk0"

But when I insert the card and boot the kobo, the screen only flashes the LED turnes from green to blue and back to blinking green and that's it ... It's not booting to debian :-(

Does anyone know what might be the problem or supply me with an image that runs on the kobo mini? Thanks very much!

BTW: The Idea is to connect a GPS module to the serial port of the kobo (Which I allready did successfully with using the xcsoar software for paragliding) and run navit [1] on the device to use as a bicycle computer for my trip next week. I basically only need a moving map application which showes the planned track I want to ride.

[1] http://wiki.navit-project.org