Touch Hacking into the Kobo Touch

[stef70]

Originally Posted by xuyn2003

Hi CdnBloodlust, thanks for your reply.
A new "font" folder with chinese ttf files can't do any help to read chinese TXTs,
I have tested many times ago, by every possible encoding methods:GBK,UTF-8 and etc.

TXT are usually not the best choice for non-ascii contented. The problem can be either in the font or in the encoding. I would not be surprised if the encoding was hard-coded and independent from the locale. You should probably try some simple latin characters such as é â é to figure out the encoding. If UTF8 does not work then the kobo is probably using a fixed size 8-bit encoding such as ISO-8859-1 and you are out of luck.

The best for you is probably to create or to find a tool to encapsulate text files into epub. That should not be so difficult because EPUB is nothing else than a ZIP archive containing simple XML and HTML files. A quick search on Google gave me that one

http://uread.superfection.com/txt2epub.html

but there are probably several more out there.

[xuyn2003]

Thank you Stef70, I had given up to render txt directly by KOBO.
I think I know too less things about linux.

[stef70]

I just noticed that Kobolab was recently updated with the full sources or the Kobo Touch linux kernel:

https://github.com/kobolabs/Kobo-Rea....6.35.3.tar.gz

The web interface refuses to provide the file (too large) so the only way I found to get the kernel sources was to download the whole git repository with

git clone https://github.com/kobolabs/Kobo-Reader.git

A very interesting part is the e-ink screen driver in

./cls/drivers/video/mxc/*
and
./cls/include/linux/mxc*.h

Documentation can be found in the iMX50 developper toolkit on the Freescale web site. (You may have to register first for free)

http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/...?code=IMX50_SW

The chapter 14 "Electrophoretic Display Controller (EPDC) Frame Buffer Driver" in the file mx50_linux.pdf describes the Linux system calls (ioctl) needed to program the e-ink screen (how to refresh,....).

Apart from the refresh problem, the e-ink screen is just a regular linux framebuffer. Search google for the numerous tutorials about linux framebuffer programming.

A few months ago, I successfully wrote a small C program to draw boxes on the screen. Unfortunately, I mistakenly remove the whole directory containing the sources and I am too busy right now to redo it :-(

To compile, I used the ARMEL cross compiler packages on Ubuntu (see gcc-arm-linux-gnueabi, libc6-dev-armel-cross, ...). Use the file include/linux/mxcfb.h from the kobolab linux kernel to program the ioctl() for the e-ink display.

Compiling a simple "hello world" program (with output on the console) was surprisingly simple. it is probably best to compile with the -static option in order to avoid mismatches in the dynamic libraries. Yo may also have to specify an option to compile for a compatible ARM processor (see /proc/cpuinfo)

The touchscreen and the 'numerous buttons' of the KT can be read via some /dev/input devices so everything needed to write new KT applications is now available.

[CdnBloodlust]

stef70: Cool thanks for a heads up on that, I might use that information at some point.

xuyn2003: I believe the graphical application replaces all strange characters with question marks. Probably some regex. I wonder if it would be possible to patch the application so it doesn't filter out characters, but that may lead to messed up looking characters if the character encoding isn't utf-8. Maybe you could manually add the files to a database with encoding information.

What I'll probably be doing the next time I feel like messing with the device is manually editing the database files.

Here's some notes I've made on the databases.

# INSERT INTO "content" VALUES('file:///mnt/onboard/sd/strings-fickel.epub#(0)','902','application/epub+zip','file:///mnt/onboard/sd/strings-fickel.epub','Unknown',NULL,'Unknown','',NULL,NULL,NULL,'',NULL,'false',NULL,'true',NULL,0,0,NULL,0,736635860,0,'2011-10-01T13:57:04','adobe_user',NULL,0,0,0,NULL,-1,1,NULL,NULL,NULL);
# INSERT INTO "content" VALUES('file:///mnt/onboard/sd/strings-fickel.epub','901','application/epub+zip',NULL,NULL,'file____mnt_onboard_sd_strings-fickel_epub','Unknown','Unknown',NULL,NULL,NULL,NULL,NULL,'false',NULL,'true',NULL,0,0,1,0,3787336,0,'2011-10-01T13:57:04','adobe_user',NULL,NULL,NULL,0,0,-1,1,NULL,'en_CA','');
% sqlite3 -header -line /home/foo/KoboReader.sqlite 'select * from "content" where ContentID = "file:///mnt/onboard/sd/strings-test.epub";'
          ContentID = file:///mnt/onboard/sd/strings-test.epub
        ContentType = 901
           MimeType = application/epub+zip
             BookID = 
          BookTitle = 
            ImageId = file____mnt_onboard_sd_strings-fickel_epub
              Title = Unknown
        Attribution = Unknown
        Description = 
        DateCreated = 
      ShortCoverKey = 
     adobe_location = 
          Publisher = 
        IsEncrypted = false
       DateLastRead = 
   FirstTimeReading = true
ChapterIDBookmarked = 
ParagraphBookmarked = 0
 BookmarkWordOffset = 0
     NumShortcovers = 1
        VolumeIndex = 0
        ___NumPages = 3787336
         ReadStatus = 0
        ___SyncTime = 2011-10-01T13:57:04
          ___UserID = adobe_user
      PublicationId = 
      ___FileOffset = 
        ___FileSize = 
     ___PercentRead = 0
___ExpirationStatus = 0
    FavouritesIndex = -1
      Accessibility = 1
         ContentURL = 
           Language = en_CA
      BookshelfTags = 



% sqlite3 -header -line /home/foo/KoboReader.sqlite 'select * from "content" where ContentID = "file:///mnt/onboard/sd/strings-test.epub#(0)";'
          ContentID = file:///mnt/onboard/sd/strings-test.epub#(0)
        ContentType = 902
           MimeType = application/epub+zip
             BookID = file:///mnt/onboard/sd/strings-fickel.epub
          BookTitle = Unknown
            ImageId = 
              Title = Unknown
        Attribution = 
        Description = 
        DateCreated = 
      ShortCoverKey = 
     adobe_location = 
          Publisher = 
        IsEncrypted = false
       DateLastRead = 
   FirstTimeReading = true
ChapterIDBookmarked = 
ParagraphBookmarked = 0
 BookmarkWordOffset = 0
     NumShortcovers = 
        VolumeIndex = 0
        ___NumPages = 736635860
         ReadStatus = 0
        ___SyncTime = 2011-10-01T13:57:04
          ___UserID = adobe_user
      PublicationId = 
      ___FileOffset = 0
        ___FileSize = 0
     ___PercentRead = 0
___ExpirationStatus = 
    FavouritesIndex = -1
      Accessibility = 1
         ContentURL = 
           Language = 
      BookshelfTags = 
sqlite3 /tmp/KoboReader.sqlite < sql-commands.txt
ebook-convert /home/foo/unsorted/links.txt /home/foo/onboard/links.epub

Those are just random notes in no particular order.

Also note the last command ebook-convert which came with calibre as a command line program which you could use to convert chinese txt to epub possibly, then copy the epub over to the kobo with wifi, then modify the database so it sees the newly added epub.

Not sure what the numpages value is exactly, anyone have info in that? 3787336 does not look like a number of pages. Also I believe the epub was 2 or 3 pages long in this database.

[xuyn2003]

Originally Posted by CdnBloodlust

xuyn2003: I believe the graphical application replaces all strange characters with question marks. Probably some regex.

Thank you CdnBloodlust for your advice, I'll try to look into the sql DB for some information.

I think that is not the graphical application, but a special program which kobo used to render txt files replaced the characters.
Because the chinese file name can be rendered correctly in the book list, ???? are only appear in the content of txt files.

[BobaHoTep]

Hey all, I followed the simple instructions to gain telnet access to the kobo touch, and it's clear that something is happening since I get an immediate "connection refused" but am still unable to get to the step where I am asked for a password.

I factory reset, grabbed the KoboRoot.tgz, made the modifications as specified (though noted that with firmware 9.11 there is no inittab file I had to create it), rebooted, finished the upgrade, then copied the modified KoboRoot.tgz to the device, it "upgraded" a second time, then tried to make the telnet connection (verified I was hitting the right MAC address) and boom "connection refused"

Are the instructions the same for 9.11 or has something changed?

I feel like a loser can't even get past the first step, but I've triple checked and at least as far as following the instructions goes I've followed them to a T and so am stumped.

Thanks for the help!
-Boba

[CdnBloodlust]

BobaHoTep: Had the same problem not sure if they're exactly the same but look for post #7 at the bottom of that post. Also make sure the kobo is connected to the internet on wifi by opening the browser or something. You should be able to nmap the telnet port and get a response too when you get it working.

% nmap -n -p23 192.168.0.158

Starting Nmap 5.00 ( http://nmap.org ) at 2011-10-11 07:50 MDT
Interesting ports on 192.168.0.158:
PORT   STATE SERVICE
23/tcp open  telnet

Nmap done: 1 IP address (1 host up) scanned in 0.15 seconds
%

nmap -n -p telnet 192.168.0.158

[BobaHoTep]

Thanks Cdn, if you still have the patience I'm still having problems. This is driving me nuts, I do stuff harder than this everyday, but I'm still unable to get your instructions to work.

The directory structure I'm working with is
KoboRoot/etc

And when I compress before copying back to /Volumes/KOBOeReader/.kobo the command I use is

tar czf KoboRoot.tgz ./KoboRoot

Here's the content of each of my files

inittab:
::sysinit:/etc/init.d/rcS
::respawn:/sbin/getty -L ttymxc0 115200 vt100
::ctrlaltdel:/sbin/reboot
::shutdown:/bin/umount -a -r
::restart:/sbin/init
::sysinit:/etc/init.d/rcS2
::respawn:/usr/sbin/inetd -f /etc/inetd.conf

inetd.conf
23 stream tcp nowait root /bin/busybox telnetd -i
21 stream tcp nowait root /bin/busybox ftpd -w -S /

rcS2 <yes I know your instructions said to put this in rcS, but since I can't even get ftp to work I assume I'm doing something else wrong first>
#!/bin/sh
mkdir -p /dev/pts
mount -t devpts devpts /dev/pts

rcS

#!/bin/sh

mount -o remount,noatime,nodiratime /dev/mmcblk0p1 /

PLATFORM=freescale
if [ `dd if=/dev/mmcblk0 bs=512 skip=1024 count=1 | grep -c "HW CONFIG"` == 1 ]; then
PLATFORM=ntx508
fi

if [ $PLATFORM == freescale ]; then
if [ ! -s /lib/firmware/imx/epdc_E60_V220.fw ]; then
mkdir -p /lib/firmware/imx
dd if=/dev/mmcblk0 bs=512K skip=10 count=1 | zcat > /lib/firmware/imx/epdc_E60_V220.fw
sync
fi
fi

PATH=/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/lib:
runlevel=S
prevlevel=N
umask 022
export PATH runlevel prevlevel

for i in /proc /dev /root /tmp /sys /mnt/sd /mnt/onboard /mnt/user /var/lib /var/log /var/run /lib/modules/`uname -r`; do
[ ! -d $i ] && mkdir -p $i
done;

/bin/mount -t proc none /proc
/bin/mount -t tmpfs none -o size=10240k /tmp
/bin/mount -t tmpfs none /dev
/bin/mount -t tmpfs none -o size=16k /var/log
/bin/mount -t tmpfs none -o size=128k /var/run
/bin/mount -t sysfs none -o size=500k /sys

mkfifo /tmp/nickel-hardware-status
rm -rf /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules

echo -e '\000\000\000\000' > /proc/sys/kernel/hotplug
/sbin/udevd -d
/sbin/udevadm control --env=STARTUP=1
/sbin/udevadm trigger
/sbin/udevadm settle --timeout=2
/sbin/udevadm control --env=STARTUP=

( usleep 400000; /etc/init.d/on-animator.sh ) &

dosfsck -a -w /dev/mmcblk0p3
mount -t vfat -o iocharset=utf8 /dev/mmcblk0p3 /mnt/onboard
rm -rf /mnt/onboard/fsck*
rm -rf /mnt/onboard/FSCK*

echo -n 8192 > /proc/sys/vm/min_free_kbytes

if [ ! -e /mnt/onboard/.kobo ]; then
mkdir -p /mnt/onboard/.kobo
tar zxf /usr/local/Kobo/db.tgz -C /mnt/onboard
sync
echo "Decompressed database"
fi

if [ -e /mnt/onboard/.kobo/Kobo.tgz ]; then
zcat /mnt/onboard/.kobo/Kobo.tgz > /dev/null && tar zxf /mnt/onboard/.kobo/Kobo.tgz -C /usr/local/Kobo/
rm /mnt/onboard/.kobo/Kobo.tgz
echo "Done upgrading..."
fi

if [ -e /mnt/onboard/.kobo/KoboRoot.tgz ]; then
killall on-animator.sh
zcat /etc/images/ghostbuster.raw.gz | /usr/local/Kobo/pickel showpic
/etc/init.d/update-animator.sh &
zcat /mnt/onboard/.kobo/KoboRoot.tgz > /dev/null && tar zxf /mnt/onboard/.kobo/KoboRoot.tgz -C /
if [ -e /mnt/onboard/.kobo/upgrade ]; then
/etc/init.d/upgrade-wifi.sh
rm -rf /mnt/onboard/.kobo/upgrade
fi
rm /mnt/onboard/.kobo/KoboRoot.tgz
killall update-animator.sh
echo "Done upgrading..."
zcat /etc/images/ghostbuster.raw.gz | /usr/local/Kobo/pickel showpic
zcat /etc/images/reboot.raw.gz | /usr/local/Kobo/pickel showpic
sync
reboot
fi

(
/usr/local/Kobo/pickel disable.rtc.alarm

if [ ! -e /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf ]; then
cp /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf.template /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf
fi

echo 1 > /sys/devices/platform/mxc_dvfs_core.0/enable

/sbin/hwclock -s -u
) &

INTERFACE=wlan0
WIFI_MODULE=ar6000
if [ $PLATFORM == ntx508 ]; then
INTERFACE=eth0
WIFI_MODULE=dhd
fi

export INTERFACE
export WIFI_MODULE

export QWS_MOUSE_PROTO="tslib_nocal:/dev/input/event1"
export QWS_KEYBOARD=imx508kbd:/dev/input/event0
export QWS_DISPLAY=Transformed:imx508:Rot90
export NICKEL_HOME=/mnt/onboard/.kobo
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/local/Kobo
export WIFI_MODULE_PATH=/drivers/$PLATFORM/wifi/$WIFI_MODULE.ko
export LANG=en_US.UTF-8
export UBOOT_MMC=/etc/u-boot/$PLATFORM/u-boot.mmc
export UBOOT_RECOVERY=/etc/u-boot/$PLATFORM/u-boot.recovery

/usr/local/Kobo/nickel -qws &

(
if [ -e /dev/mmcblk1p1 ]; then
ACTION=add DEVNAME=/dev/mmcblk1p1 /usr/local/Kobo/udev/sd
fi
) &

[BobaHoTep]

One more thing, I went and added the following to rcS

/mnt/onboard/run.sh &

And in the run.sh a dead simple

echo "test" > /mnt/onboard/TEST.txt

and even this doesn't do anything. I am able to trigger the upgrade and reboot when I

cp KoboRoot.tgz /Volumes/KOBOeReader/.kobo

But after that none of my content seems to execute. This really isn't hard, so I'm mystified. Have you guys all tried this with 1.9.11?

Thanks!

I have done bits and pieces with 1.9.11. I was able to get run.sh to work, and had it dump all sorts of information to a file. That, of course, is the most important step since a working run.sh file lets you make and verify changes. Here's what I did:

Factory reset.
Manual update to 1.9.11.
Extracted etc/rcS from KoboRoot.tgz.
Added the line for run.sh, just before nickle.
Created a new KoboRoot.tgz with just etc/rcS.
Copied the new KoboRoot.tgz file to .kobo.
Created a run.sh file with the line echo "I'm working!" >> /mnt/onboard/log.txt.
Copied the run.sh file to the root directory of the Kobo.
Cycled the power on the Kobo so that it updates.
Verified that log.txt exists.

[CdnBloodlust]

BobaHoTep:

I think the problem you're having is the way you're creating the archive. Open the archive in some viewer like file-roller and verify the first directory should be "etc" or maybe ".". If it's KoboRoot and not etc then you need to cd KoboRoot then "tar czf KoboRoot.tgz .". I'm not sure that last code with tar command is 100% correct but it looks right. If that doesn't help then this is what my files look like...

my setup was like this
append the the very bottom of rcS the mkdir and mount for pts
rcS2 doesn't exist

here's my inittab

# This is run first except when booting in single-user mode. .
::sysinit:/etc/init.d/rcS
::respawn:/sbin/getty -L ttymxc0 115200 vt100
::ctrlaltdel:/sbin/reboot
::shutdown:/bin/umount -a -r
::restart:/sbin/init
# ::sysinit:/etc/init.d/rcS2
::respawn:/usr/sbin/inetd -f /etc/inetd.conf

Note 1: And if your archive contained KoboRoot you might have a directory /KoboRoot which is just taking up space. Even if it's only a few kb.

Note 2: If you update you will probably lose ftp and telnet. I can't say for sure but I updated and lost both and had to redo the koboroot archive thing again to get it back. You can update even by just pressing the sync button it checks for updates.

On Note 2:

I am guessing that you would only have to replace /etc/rcS after an update, since the other edited files don't seem to be modified in the update process (at least thus far).

[BobaHoTep]

Cdn, thanks it does seem to be the fact that I was tar-ing up the whole KoboRoot directory instead of just patching just the etc directory. Not sure why that would have mattered, but sure enough it resolves the problem - I'm in! Much thanks, now hopefully I can start contributing meaningfully...

[CdnBloodlust]

tar czf KoboRoot.tgz ./KoboRoot

I would've never even caught that archive thing if you hadn't posting your command. Thanks for posting meaningful information, glad to see you got it working.

[notimetoread]

I'm having problems telnetting into the kobo touch.

The run.sh script works nicely, and the inetd.conf file gets loaded:
If I comment out the line

23 stream tcp nowait root /bin/busybox telnetd -i

then I get:

$ telnet 192.168.1.6
Trying 192.168.1.6...
telnet: Unable to connect to remote host: Connection refused

with the line not commented out, I get

$ telnet 192.168.1.6
Trying 192.168.1.6...
Connected to 192.168.1.6.
Escape character is '^]'.
Connection closed by foreign host.

where the connection gets closed immediately. Anyone have any idea? Firmware version is 1.9.14.