Onyx Boox as monitor

[mdp]

Originally Posted by Dimos

Hi, i can ping my tablet from my pc but i can not ping my pc from my tablet something is blocking my connection and i don't have a firewall (i am using usbnetwork)

I wrote you a Personal Message not to over-dilute this thread. Pls send me the commands you are issuing, so I can help troubleshooting.

[elementarythree]

I did a few tests to connect the Max 2 in different ways as a second monitor with Linux. In all tests the tablet was networked via USB

1) The app XSDL X - which runs an X server in android works pretty well but is slow, as that flavor of X server doesn't seem to apply any hardware acceleration. Forwarded apps from the desktop system dependent on any kind of 3D acceleration are a no go too. Performance isn't great either.

2) Monitor Mod 3: Works just as expected and is easiest to set up. I observed the CPU cores with htop while it's running and noticed a constant high CPU load (screen modes, settings etc. didn't matter) even when the picture is still. That's probably where the reported high battery drain comes from. At least the load doesn't go up when the picture is actually moving.The load average (for people who know what that means) goes above 2, touching 3.

4) bVNC in combination with tigerVNC server on the host - this one worked the best. When the screen is static, there's no CPU load. When there's little movement on the screen, the load is still low. frequent and constant updates can cause a higher CPU load than the monitor mod, though. With VirtualGL and a running X server on the host, apps using 3D acceleration are possible too, or just use x11vnc. Stuff like Dwarf Fortress is playable, stuff like Rimworld isn't really. (full screen scrolls are brutal and work much better via HDMI)

All in all, a remote VNC connection seems to be the most efficient and advisable.

[mdp]

Originally Posted by elementarythree

Monitor Mod 3: [...] constant high CPU load [...] high battery drain

The throttle is not in the mod (cannot be), it is in the original. Because of that drain I kind of set the HDMI aside (for VNC, had I had the time).

Originally Posted by elementarythree

bVNC in combination with tigerVNC server on the host - this one worked the best [...] or just use x11vnc. Stuff like Dwarf Fortress is playable, stuff like Rimworld isn't really. (full screen scrolls are brutal and work much better via HDMI)

I do not know how tigerVNC works, but x11vnc has to continuously scan the source screen to see if anything changed and report to the clients. Maybe the VNC server embedded in VMware (or other odd tricks) does a better job?

[elementarythree]

Didn't think it was the mod, just included what exactly I used for completeness sake. Maybe in the future onyx does something about the CPU load and then me mentioning I used the original App could be confusing for people googling about it. I'm surprised and not surprised at the same time. On one hand, I am pretty sure there's nothing custom about Onyx HDMI port and the SoC has hardware support for HDMI input, what surprises me here is that it seems to be relatively inefficient. On the other hand it really isn't as we have a lot of pixels to handle and there's no hint for the tablet in HDMI if a specific pixel changed or not, it's not how HDMI works. Still wondering if Onyx really did use all hardware capabilities of the SoC here, no idea though

x11vnc is relatively clever about what screen regions got changed and what not, it uses the XDAMAGE extension in the xserver which is exactly for that. x11vnc also can implement a client-side cache of sorts by transmitting a larger picture to the client in which it buffers screen regions client-side in an offscreen region below the actual desktop. This is a lot faster than re-transmitting for the client on one hand, on the other hand it's sadly also kinda awkard as you can scroll down and see that region. There's no real support for caching like this in the protocol, so this is kind of a hack.

tigervnc "vncserver script" (and it's also just a perl script, it uses xvnc) also uses all inherent xvnc advantages. (xvnc is basically an X server that only has a virtual screen that exists in memory) I sometimes play full-blown videogames via WINE and xvnc&VirtualGL on my desktop. They run on another, beefier computer in my network which isn't even in the same room as me and appear in a window just as if they would run locally. Unix xvnc stuff isn't comparable to the vnc stuff for windows. Since xvnc runs a full-blown xserver, you can do fun things like run one window manager on one xserver, and a different one on the other, e.g. run Openbox for the tablet and herbstluftwm or i3 on your main screen. Via VirtualGL the second vnc x server can still access the hardware of the graphics card in the first server. (..or of a different card, you can do stuff like use graphics card A for the X session that's used by the guy sitting at the computer, and graphics card B for somebody remote-ing in, fun stuff - this is also fully independent on whatever is connected [or not, you can also turn off all outputs and save a few watts] to the card screen-wise so you can set up virtual screens of arbitrary size)

There is some overhead but it's low. People give X a lot of crap but it's actually pretty good and most of all, it's written with networking in mind. Granted, networking before the time of the modern security nightmare we all live in, but still.

bVNC gets a bit more efficient in a low-latency connection if you enable it's hextile compression, as it's a very low compression level and doesn't weight down the CPU on both sides as much. I'm not sure if it does jpeg compression as it doesn't mention it anywhere but turning that off would probably help too. If you are in a wired connection (like the USB connection is) you basically want to do little compression. (but not so little that everything gets bogged down by the sheer amount of data, there is a balance you want to find) Limiting frame rates also works. If everything is set up correctly, together with VirtualGL it should be possible to play videos on the Max 2 via mpv for example.

Honestly though, this stuff usually works best in normal 2D workloads, like normal desktop work stuff. When it comes to games where you often change the entire screen content lots of times a second, stuff can get slow above 1080p on not-too-fast CPUs like the ones in the Max 2. It's probably better to use the HDMI port then, as it doesn't seem to be affected by how much change in the screen there is.

EDIT: sorry for that wall of text everyone but X can be seriously cool and I like spreading the word, lots of people are not aware of the capabilities it has.

[mdp]

Originally Posted by elementarythree

Didn't think it was the mod, just included what exactly I used for completeness sake. Maybe in the future onyx does something about the CPU load and then me mentioning I used the original App could be confusing for people googling about it. I'm surprised and not surprised at the same time

I know. Also precising.
EDIT: I have not done any profiling (effort I did not need to spend), but the Monitor.apk from Onyx should be checked for heavy loops.

Originally Posted by elementarythree

x11vnc is relatively clever about what screen regions got changed and what not, it uses the XDAMAGE extension in the xserver which is exactly for that

«Relatively», exactly: were things simple...

Note that the DAMAGE extension does not speed up the actual reading of pixels from the video card framebuffer memory, by, say, mirroring them in main memory. So reading the fb is still painfully slow (e.g. 5MB/sec), and so even using X DAMAGE when large changes occur on the screen the bulk of the time is still spent retrieving them. Not ideal, but use of the ShadowFB XFree86/Xorg option speeds up the reading considerably (at the cost of h/w acceleration.)

Unfortunately the current Xorg DAMAGE extension implementation can at times be overly conservative and report very large rectangles as "damaged" even though only a small portion of the pixels have actually been modified. This behavior is often the fault of the window manager (e.g. it redraws the entire, unseen, frame window underneath the application window when it gains focus), or the application itself (e.g. does large, unnecessary repaints.)

To work around this deficiency, x11vnc currently only trusts small DAMAGE rectangles to contain real damage. The larger rectangles are only used as hints to focus the traditional scanline polling (i.e. if a scanline doesn't intersect a recent DAMAGE rectangle, the scan is skipped.) You can use the "-xd_area A" option to adjust the size of the trusted DAMAGE rectangles. The default is 20000 pixels (e.g. a 140x140 square, etc.) Use "-xd_area 0" to disable the cutoff and trust all DAMAGE rectangles.

Originally Posted by elementarythree

tigervnc "vncserver script" (and it's also just a perl script, it uses xvnc) also uses all inherent xvnc advantages. (xvnc is basically an X server that only has a virtual screen that exists in memory) I sometimes play full-blown videogames via WINE and xvnc&VirtualGL on my desktop

So, you get a performance boost?

Originally Posted by elementarythree

bVNC gets a bit more efficient in a low-latency connection if you enable it's hextile compression, as it's a very low compression level and doesn't weight down the CPU on both sides as much. I'm not sure if it does jpeg compression as it doesn't mention it anywhere but turning that off would probably help too

Yes bVNC does have compression levels and JPG quality levels. You do not need to turn it off (it would probably be a bad idea transmitting uniform blocks), just set it low and the CPU impact is minimal. You should have found in the thread also modifications of mine to Iordanov's bVNC, including full screen refresh and mode switch during application use. (Initially I had the bad idea of setting a high compression level, which on the very slow CPU of the MaxCarta was a nailed snail in agony, then I published a version with clever compression and quality parameters (compression: 1/10, quality 5/10).
I had bad results with hextile.
I discussed with Iordan about adding more options about it (of course, I doubt he will ever embed the Onyx SDK for tricks like "full screen refresh" and "EPD mode switch" though - hence the modifications and repackaging).

You can find the modified bVNC here:
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...29#post3514529

[mdp]

Originally Posted by elementarythree

x11vnc [...] tigervnc [...] bVNC

Would you mind publishing the details of your best setups?
(e.g: command parameters etc.)

[elementarythree]

Have to admit I only skimmed the thread. Sorry, got a bit carried away by my excitement about X.

tl;dr:

Yes, tigervnc/xvnc should work better than x11vnc. 3D acceleration when needed can be accomplished via VirtualGL. (needs an xserver running with drivers for the card(s) though) x11vnc is simpler to set up, especially in regards to 3D accelerated apps. xvnc has more overhead because you basically run another xsession when needed with it's own window manager etc. but on any just somewhat recent computer this shouldn't really matter. You will probably not get very satisfying results without the HDMI port with stuff that does a lot of screen updates (videos, tons of scrolling etc.) Sadly, I doubt there is any good solution to that with VNC. xvnc allows to limit the framerate. Setting it to 30 or below might make things work better. Or not.

Surprised about hextile compression giving bad results, it's pretty much necessary for me in order to stream games in-network.

Gonna look into that modified bVNC and the chat about it. Thanks!

EDIT:

Originally Posted by mdp

Would you mind publishing the details of your best setups?
(e.g: command parameters etc.)

Was posted while I was typing this. I'm currently still experimenting myself, but will do!

[elementarythree]

Almost forgot to mention, with the vncserver method having bvnc running in it's own server, the disadvantage is that while we have the stylus and the touchscreen, potentially connected bluetooth keyboard, virtual keyboard etc. usable on the second server, we can't use the keyboard and mouse used on the first X server. (our Desktop)

This can be resolved by the program x2x which can be found in most distributions. Using it is pretty straightforward. Let's assume you have the eReader right of your main screen in front of you, then you'd just type:

x2x -from <number of your primary server the keyboard/mouse is connected to> -to <number of the vncserver> -east <for right of>

then you can move the mouse cursor over the right corner of your screen and into the vnc session of the other device, or type into windows, as if it was a second screen. You will not be able to drag windows into the other screen though.

in my example this would be: (primary xserver is :0)

vncserver :1 (to start the vncserver)

then

x2x -from :0 -to :1 -east

as we are running a full fledged xserver, everything will work in that vnc session that works on our primary server, including game controllers and such. We don't need to care about any security for the created traffic as both severs run on the same PC, and there will logically also be no latency as the tablet has nothing to do with that traffic at all and basically only displays the results. Just a heads-up: this also works over a network. Also yes, you will see two mouse cursors on the vnc session as you'll have two mouse cursors. You can even make them look differently if you want.

EDIT: corrected left to right. Heh.

[franzli]

Originally Posted by elementarythree

Almost forgot to mention, with the vncserver method having bvnc running in it's own server, the disadvantage is that while we have the stylus and the touchscreen, potentially connected bluetooth keyboard, virtual keyboard etc. usable on the second server, we can't use the keyboard and mouse used on the first X server. (our Desktop)

This can be resolved by the program x2x which can be found in most distributions. Using it is pretty straightforward. Let's assume you have the eReader right of your main screen in front of you, then you'd just type:

x2x -from <number of your primary server the keyboard/mouse is connected to> -to <number of the vncserver> -east <for right of>

then you can move the mouse cursor over the right corner of your screen and into the vnc session of the other device, or type into windows, as if it was a second screen. You will not be able to drag windows into the other screen though.

in my example this would be: (primary xserver is :0)

vncserver :1 (to start the vncserver)

then

x2x -from :0 -to :1 -east

as we are running a full fledged xserver, everything will work in that vnc session that works on our primary server, including game controllers and such. We don't need to care about any security for the created traffic as both severs run on the same PC, and there will logically also be no latency as the tablet has nothing to do with that traffic at all and basically only displays the results. Just a heads-up: this also works over a network. Also yes, you will see two mouse cursors on the vnc session as you'll have two mouse cursors. You can even make them look differently if you want.

EDIT: corrected left to right. Heh.

Hi, as the discussion turned more on the (X) server side, I was winding of one of you might have a hint for a problem I can across when trying to use an Onyx Note (probably Likebook Mars would have same issue) in a dual screen setup with a slightly exotic little handheld device running Linux, the Gemini PDA. This runs Linux (sort of) natively, but the display drivers seem to be somehow android based, as xrandr just shows "hwcomposer".
My problem is that I haven't been able to get a Virtual1 head/output accessible via xrandr in order to get a secondary display output of the same virtual screen, which I could then pump into the VNC server.
I fiddled around in the xorg.conf a but, but that usually ended up breaking the internal screen display when nothing was connected, as it was pulling out the whole virtual screen even at the login screen.

There's a sketch of what I'm after here: https://www.oesf.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=35503

A potential limitation of the Gemini PDA is that it's got no mouse-like device, hence my hope to run i3 and control most things via keyboard.

This is not something I actively look for any more, as I've found another, more powerful little device that might suit my requirements better, but it would still be nice to get something running in the Gemini.

So the short question is, can anyone think of a way that I could get a VIRTUAL1 (or other dummy) head show up in xrandr -without it being used by default (so as to avoid the display issues I had when hard coding stuff into xorg.conf), but making it available when I choose to?

[whopper]

edit.

[stevebrown153]

Originally Posted by mdp

As per the previous comments, I further modified the "Monitor" application and the script from Sogaiu to transform logged touch events into mouse events, to allow for "right mouse button" and "mouse wheel".

One finger tap → Left mouse button (also allows drag, or "touch, swipe, release")
Two fingers tap → Right mouse button if immediately released, Mouse wheel if swipe.

@Sogaiu, I took the liberty to make a few changes around, I hope it is not a problem. I did not make the changes relevant to dekstop extension yet - for now, it assumes desktop clone.

Hi MDP,

I'm a new guy to the Boox Max 2 and mainly use it as 2nd monitor. I really appreciate your works and Sogaiu's as well. As a rookie in tech, just a few questions could u help me to clarify?

1. The 1st version of Mod Monitor worked well but with the 2nd and 3rd, I cannot use Boox as a touchpad. Do I need to install something else on my laptop?

2. Is there by any chance can you modify (or show me how to change it because I have no idea about coding) Full Refresh interval time? Since Onyx set it fixed to 5 mins but 30s or 1 min shall be great for A2 mode.

Thanks in advance.

[elementarythree]

Originally Posted by franzli

Hi, as the discussion turned more on the (X) server side, I was winding of one of you might have a hint for a problem I can across when trying to use an Onyx Note (probably Likebook Mars would have same issue) in a dual screen setup with a slightly exotic little handheld device running Linux, the Gemini PDA. This runs Linux (sort of) natively, but the display drivers seem to be somehow android based, as xrandr just shows "hwcomposer".
My problem is that I haven't been able to get a Virtual1 head/output accessible via xrandr in order to get a secondary display output of the same virtual screen, which I could then pump into the VNC server.
I fiddled around in the xorg.conf a but, but that usually ended up breaking the internal screen display when nothing was connected, as it was pulling out the whole virtual screen even at the login screen.

There's a sketch of what I'm after here: https://www.oesf.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=35503

A potential limitation of the Gemini PDA is that it's got no mouse-like device, hence my hope to run i3 and control most things via keyboard.

This is not something I actively look for any more, as I've found another, more powerful little device that might suit my requirements better, but it would still be nice to get something running in the Gemini.

So the short question is, can anyone think of a way that I could get a VIRTUAL1 (or other dummy) head show up in xrandr -without it being used by default (so as to avoid the display issues I had when hard coding stuff into xorg.conf), but making it available when I choose to?

I'm not entirely sure what you are asking, you want to create a second screen that only exists in memory? this is possible with vncserver/Xvnc. You can then remote into it and have it display on the device with a vnc client. It is not hardware accelerated though. You can also use x11vnc that just mirrors the main X server running. Hope that helps. If you are a german speaker (somehow your forumname makes me believe that, sorry if not) you can write me a PM and ask again in german, as I am a native speaker.
--

I got vncserver/Xvnc running natively on the Boox Max2 inside termux, and even set up fluxbox and aterm to run locally. Graphics are not hardware accelerated of course but a lot more stable than XSDL XServer (which is not hardware accelerated either) As of optimization, tigervncs Xvnc already does everything as optimal as possible, what you can add is disabling all connection encryption which is not necessary locally and I could imagine helps a little bit. After trying to compile Xvnc locally (and even making good progress) I found out that termux has an official x11-repo that actually has all these programs ready already. D'oh! The command line parameter I used was

Xvnc -localhost :0 -SecurityTypes=None -geometry 1650x2200 (portrait)

you could also try to set up an entire linux distribution inside of termux and prooting into it, there would be a performance hit though, even though I'm not sure how big. All this makes me wonder if you could theoretically kill surfaceflinger and run an normal Xserver in it's place, even if only with fbdev maybe, but you'd eventually want to replace the init files with your own custom stuff, which would require permanent root to make it not mindbogglingly frustrating to set up. I actually have the same SoC the Max 2 has on an ARM development board and hardware acceleration is not exciting with the Mali GPU it has anyways, at least not with purebred linux.

Not sure if it's worth the effort to run a "purebred" linux instead of android. Android does have some apps you'd want to use (like for the Wacom pen and pdf viewing) and the vnc method can run most linux programs you'd reasonably run on what's essentially a monochrome-screened device with very low framerate anyways. It doesn't even make much sense to use X terminal emulation, as Termux is arguably more fitting and has less overhead. (You can still get window management with dvtm, screen or tmux)

Anyways, these were my findings! (so far)

EDIT: added geometry paramater

[sogaiu]

FWIW, along the lines of running some kind of Linux distribution inside Android, these days there are the likes of UserLAnd and AnLinux (both available via f-droid). IIRC, folks have been trying this sort of thing going back some years with varying degrees of success.

Oh yeah, there is this thread too:

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=295486

[2new]

Originally Posted by mdp

How would you judge the quality (experience using the screen)?
A video would be very appreciated.
And, maybe, more details about the components.

What happened to Pixel Qi and Mary Lou Jepsen (scribbling but about to check)?
EDIT: there is an article from Nate around the time Pixel Qi closed
https://the-digital-reader.com/2015/...pining-fjords/
and, incredibly, Michael Kozlowsky published an article about the enterprise (and alternatives, competitors, and current state) only 5 days ago
https://goodereader.com/blog/electro...der-revolution

Sorry it took so long to respond, life obstacles. Images attached show my nook glowlight, pixel qi, and an iPad with tech 21 screen protector. Obviously the nook is the clearest of them all. The pixel qi has to be at the right angle and the bolder the text the better since it gets washed out. The iPad does surprisingly well since you can do low brightness and adjust white balance in accessibility settings, much easier than any Android color screen tablet I have owned.

I made my own rdp like client shown in the animated gif. It essentially streams your screen over the web browser and has rest endpoints for mouse and keyboard. I really only use the mouse endpoint and use they keyboard connected to the computer. That's why I asked about localhoat access on onyx max 2. To me it's fast enough in a2 mode, although sound is off. My nook only works over wifi, no USB.

That's my research. This forum has been helpful even though I'm dragging my feet on buying a larger eink device.

[artempav]

Dear Mdp, I have one ask for you. Now I use your mod-3. In normal mode mouse movement for me much better than in a2 mode, because in normal mode mouse movement more smooth. But problem that font quality is a bit muddy in normal mode. And for me much easy to work with fonts in a2 mode, but mouse movement makes me nervous in a2. Can it be change somehow?