Android on Kobo: "Tips and Apps"

[Ankan]

As plivesey I have Kobo Touch N905B too and having problem with dual boot.

When holding Home and turning on device by holding power for 2 sec, and then still holding Home button the led first lights up blue shortly and then white for some scounds. Then I get two or three updates on screen (Still empty screen) and the led flash green two times and the switch off.
Nothing more happens but I guess the device is on because I have to hold the power button for about 10 sec with a green led and then start it up as normal without Home-button to get in to "Kobo OS" as from factory.

Is it possible to log or use terminal output in some kind of way to troubleshoot the Android boot.

The image looked good and I had no problem to extract image to SD card and run the script that makes the backup and so on.

[Ankan]

Got it working now with that other image I find earlier in the thread.

Now I have to dig deeper in using Android on Kobo Touch. I would like to use it as a plotter when sailing. I guess I can't use the internal serial in Android so I guess the only soulution is gps over wifi. How to install Play store first to be able to install plotter software and wifi to gps software if possible.

[Ankan]

How do I install apps without Play store account on Kobo?
I use http://apps.evozi.com/apk-downloader/ to download the app, but then what?
How to transfer the app to the ereader?

[windyvincent]

Originally Posted by Ankan

How do I install apps without Play store account on Kobo?
I use http://apps.evozi.com/apk-downloader/ to download the app, but then what?
How to transfer the app to the ereader?

You can transfer the apk file to the Kobo, then open it with Total Commander or other file explorer to install it.

[takikura]

Originally Posted by Ankan

Got it working now with that other image I find earlier in the thread.

Dear Ankan
I also have N905B and the same bual boot problem. I remember I tried several images but could not solve the problem. I would appreciate it very much, if you could let me know which image you used to solve this problme.

Dear embryo

I need your help again. I have also a Kobo Glo with this dual boot system working very well except for the following strange phenomena. I have a collection of Japanese books with Japanese file names. These file names are in utf8 format.
When the folder of these books is copied from my PC to my Kobo, the file names are shown with any Android file managers properly in Japanese. But once the Kobo is restarted these files are shown with ?????? replacing all Japanese charactors, making it impossible to see what books they are.
If I connect the Kobo to the PC and disconnect it without doing anything, then the file names are shown properly again in Japanese untill I restart the Kobo.
This problem does not exit with the Kobo Glo with the single Androd boot system for which I used the image Marek uploaded in the Android on Glo thread; https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...&postcount=151
I tried to use this image for the dual boot but it did not work and thus used the image you have in your dual boot instruction.
I have no problem with these file names on other Androd tablets and a phone with Android version 4 and newer. I spent whole yesterday to solve this problem but in vain.
I changed the access attribute of the folder, leaving only owner R ON, making all other RWX OFF, while the file names are shown OK. But after the restart, all these attributes are ON and the files names are shown incorrectly. I zipped the folder on the PC and transfered it to the Kobo. I can open the zipped folder with proper Japanese file names even after restart. These give me the impression that Kobo Androd sytem for dual boot changes the file name charactor code from Unicode 8 to say, Sift JIS code, when restarted.
I found an aritcle saying that this may have something to do with nls_utf8.ko and nls_cp437.ko and loaded these modules using ther module loader after restart. This loading sometimes restored the file names to proper display but not alway. The most stable solution is to connect the Kobe to the PC and disconnect it. But this is cumbersome. I really like the flexibility of this dual boot system and want to stay with it and hope someone can help me to solve this problem.
takikura

[embryo]

Originally Posted by takikura

I need your help again. I have also a Kobo Glo with this dual boot system working very well except for the following strange phenomena. I have a collection of Japanese books with Japanese file names. These file names are in utf8 format.

You can use the "Android System.dualboot.tar.bz2" that I attached to the first post, to modify your working version of Android for dual boot.
You can also upload a zip of some "not working" file (if its not copyrighted and big), so I can give it a try.

[takikura]

Originally Posted by embryo

You can use the "Android System.zip" that I attached to the first post, to modify your working version of Android for dual boot.
You can also upload a zip of some "not working" file (if its not copyrighted and big), so I can give it a try.

Dear embryo

Thanks for your quick reply. I do not know anything about the inside of the Android system. So I have to hope that you will encounter the same problem with the attached data. These are works of famous Japanese writers whose copyrights are gone long time time ago.
The attached "Correct Display" shows how the file names look. If they are incorrectly shown, all the characters are replaced with "?".

Thanks for your help in advace.

Takikura

[embryo]

Originally Posted by takikura

So I have to hope that you will encounter the same problem with the attached data.

Unfortunately, I haven't.
I unzipped the file with ES File Explorer, and I could see and open the files just fine.
I rebooted (twice) and everything was OK every time.
I checked with my single Android system and with the dual boot setup.
I could read and open them with Total commander also but I couldn't see the proper names inside the zip.
So if you have an Android setup that behaves OK, I'll advice you to use it as dual boot.

Originally Posted by takikura

I do not know anything about the inside of the Android system.

Me neither.
I just started to use Linux after I bought a Glo, just so I can copy, partition or manipulate android system files (I could not from inside windows). I use a virtual machine for that.

If you have access to a Linux setup, you just have to copy and replace the 3 files on your Android System partition.
You can do it one at a time, or with one go if you just extract the attachment of this post.

The command to do it is sudo tar -xvpjf '/home/x/Desktop/Android System.dualboot.tar.bz2' -C '/media/'
where '/home/x/Desktop/Android System.dualboot.tar.bz2' is the address of the archive and '/media/' is where your "Android System" is mounted.
Good luck.

[takikura]

Originally Posted by embryo

I'll advice you to use it as dual boot.
The command to do it is sudo tar -xvpjf '/home/x/Desktop/Android System.dualboot.tar.bz2' -C '/media/'
where '/home/x/Desktop/Android System.dualboot.tar.bz2' is the address of the archive and '/media/' is where your "Android System" is mounted.
Good luck.

Dear embryo

Thanks for a through report of your tests. I followed your advice and made my single boot SD to be for the double boot. I have the ubuntu installed on my Win 8 PC but did not understand what X means in your command. It took some time to figure out that it should be my name. Anyway surprisingly this worked and the image which did not work for dual boot now works with this modification. I am happy now because I made a lots of settings for various readers in this card before the dual boot thing came out.
But unfortunately the file name problem still remains. I am sure I did not have this problem when I was using this SD card for single boot. This is very strange. I connect the Android Glo to the PC and then the file names are restored. The names are still OK if I put the Glo to sleep and wake it up. But if I reboot it or run the Kobo original reader and come back to the Android Glo all the names are changed to ? charactors.
I bought this Kobo Glo in Japan, as these things are cheap there. This should be friendlier to Japanese charactors than yours is.

I do not believe I can figure out why this happens to me only. I will change all these Japanese characters to romanized Japanese ones. This is not a decent solution but I have to live with this.

Thanks for your help again.
Takikura

[embryo]

Originally Posted by takikura

I bought this Kobo Glo in Japan, as these things are cheap there. This should be friendlier to Japanese charactors than yours is.

I think that both our Glo should be friendlier to German characters since we use the Deutsche Telekom's tolino image

I do not believe I can figure out why this happens to me only. I will change all these Japanese characters to romanized Japanese ones. This is not a decent solution but I have to live with this.

With what file manger are you extracting the files, and where (at what address)?
I used ES File Zip Viewer (from inside ES File Explorer) and extract them to the root of the SD card.
Do you still have the Tolino app installed? I don't.
There is something on your setup (some setting) that is different than mine, because its the same Android image on the same hardware.
If you have some time you can go back to the Marek's original image and see if the files work OK there.
If they do, start the customization and observe at what point you lose them.
When you find the culprit, put your real image to the card and fix it.

Persistence Wins.
Good luck.

[takikura]

Originally Posted by embryo

I think that both our Glo should be friendlier to German characters since we use the Deutsche Telekom's tolino image

Hallo Genius

You are right. I have no problem with German characters on our better looking clone. But now even Japanese charaters are sold stable on it.

With what file manger are you extracting the files, and where (at what address)? I used ES File Zip Viewer (from inside ES File Explorer) and extract them to the root of the SD card.

I did the same and found this is the solution. The file names are still clear Japanese after reboot. Unbelievable.
I copied the folder zipped on the PC to my Kobo and opened the folder with various file managers including ES File Explorer, Dual File Manager etc to find garbled file names after reboot. Never thought to unzip the folder on the Kobo.

Now another strange thing is;
Yesterday I thought the cause might be the way the SD card was mounted after the PC connection and after the reboot. Then I thought maybe your Kobo firmware was the latest one and I realized that mine was 2.6.0. I changed it to 3.1.0 and saw that the file names looked OK with it. They were "???" with FW2.6.0. I thought this was because txt. format was not supported with Kobo FW. But this was not the solution to my problem on the Android FW. Now I made another test to see whether the files names of the books zipped on the Kobo are stable after running the Kobo FW and comming back to Android. These new files names are garbled on the Kobo FW screen with new sets of strange characters, not with "?" while the same files names on the Androd screen are OK after this test.
Can we stop the Kobo FW to automatically collect txt formated books to its library? It does not make sense it collects books, which it cannot handle, into its library. On Android there is an app called "vertical text viewer" which is iInk friendly. I want to use the Kobo FW, as it offers a good English Japanese dictionary for reading English books.



takikura

[embryo]

Originally Posted by takikura

Can we stop the Kobo FW to automatically collect txt formated books to its library? It does not make sense it collects books, which it cannot handle, into its library.

Nickel can handle txt files like books http://www.kobo.com/help/koboglo/res...t&requestType=
If you don't want Nickel to "see" some files of yours, put them in a "system" folder (a folder who's name starts with a dot) like .Extra, .Text, or whatever...

[takikura]

Originally Posted by embryo

Nickel can handle txt files like books http://www.kobo.com/help/koboglo/res...t&requestType=
If you don't want Nickel to "see" some files of yours, put them in a "system" folder (a folder who's name starts with a dot) like .Extra, .Text, or whatever...

Thanks for this tip. I put all my books in .hugendubel and Nickel now shows only books I downloaded from Rakuten.

Rakuten Japan does not say TXT is supported.
http://kobo.rakuten.co.jp/ereaders/koboglo/

Nikckel does support 8 bit charactor text format but not 16 bit charactor text format. Please try to display the Japanese books on Nickel. Rakuten is sacrifycing Japanese users to take care of European users.

By the way, I have not finished to make my Kobo Touch N905B to do the dual boot due to the same problem someone reported in this thread. Can I use for this Kobo the same "Android System.dualboot.tar.bz2" and procedure you gave me for Glo the other day?

Regards
Takikura

[embryo]

Originally Posted by takikura

Nikckel does support 8 bit charactor text format but not 16 bit charactor text format. Please try to display the Japanese books on Nickel.

You can always convert them to epub with calibre...

By the way, I have not finished to make my Kobo Touch N905B to do the dual boot due to the same problem someone reported in this thread. Can I use for this Kobo the same "Android System.dualboot.tar.bz2" and procedure you gave me for Glo the other day?

Unfortunately I test them only on a Glo, so I can not answer.
If you have your card backed up, you can test it.
I don't think that the \system\usr\keylayout\mxckpd.kl needs to be replaced. This is for the Glo only.

[Ficko]

Hi!

I do not want to be look like being pushy but like to know how the Aura HD Fi-Wi,USB adjusting is progressing? I have updated my Kobo firmware to 3.2.0 and do not wanna install Android if a new more workable release is coming out soon.