Snippets of Boox Max 2 knowledge

elementarythree · 08-19-2018, 01:58 PM

I got this device last week because I always wanted to have an portable eInk computer I can run stuff like emacs on, and this is as close as a ready made solution that exists. The eReader and scribbling/drawing part of course is also interesting, but I gotta admit I got this mostly for Termux and Linux userland after having a lot of fun with that on an rooted LineageOS smartphone. After reading some of the threads here, I don't think I'm the only one.

It'd be nice if we could collect some snippets of knowledge in this thread to make the device more into a computer experience, a bit for advanced Linux users maybe.

To start things off, I have a command to get a rough estimation how fast a device is, by letting it calculate PI to 5000 digits:

time echo "scale=5000; a(1)*4" | bc -l

I know it's not incredibly accurate but it's a nice real life test to get an idea in what ballpark to put a CPU in and runs on almost everything that provides the tools and also gives you a difference between real time (how long the command ran in clock-time) and user time (how much the CPU actually spent on the process) no matter how busy the system is elsewhere. When a device does nothing or almost nothing real time and user time are usually very close. When running this command on the Boox Max2 I got a crazy discrepancy: while the device only took ~57 seconds to calculate Pi (which is quite ok for a mobile device, for comparsion, my i7 5820k needs about 10 seconds) it took about 25 minutes (!!!) of real time to actually finish the process.

After rooting the tablet and rummaging around, I found the interactive CPU governor was to blame, which was set by the Onyx engineer to very aggressive values and keeping the speed of the CPUs low, probably for powersaving purposes. Setting the device to the more standard ondemand governor removed the bizarre delay in finishing that task and also made my bluetooth keyboard and the general user interface *a lot* more responsive, basically eliminating the need to double tap things because the device failed to register the first tap, which I'm sure a lot of people are familiar with.

So that's a neat trick. I have no idea which influence it has on battery life, it does not seem to be dramatic though so far as ondemand also clocks the CPUs down when nothing is happening. As the device is thin, made of plastic and weights almost nothing, I am not sure if it couldn't overheat when at this setting (which might also be a reason for the aggressive setting to begin with) so use at your own risk. I haven't noticed any heat problems with normal usage either though. If you are not that familiar with the command line, there are also apps to change these kernel settings. You will need root though.

On my phone I have battery charging disabled when it is connected to usb, which is great for the battery as USB provides enough energy to keep my entire phone running. I'm trying to find a similar function with the charging circuit of the Max2 (would be nice in order to help the battery when used as a screen) but I'm not even sure the charging circuit is capable of it, or the driver exposes such a setting, at least I couldn't find anything so far. Gotta admit, the screen is very nice but everything around it is kinda meh, especially for the price. We'll see.

I'd like to hear about your bits of wisdom!

mdp · 08-19-2018, 07:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by elementarythree

After rooting the tablet and rummaging around, I found the interactive CPU governor was to blame, which was set by the Onyx engineer to very aggressive values and keeping the speed of the CPUs low, probably for powersaving purposes. Setting the device to the more standard ondemand governor removed the bizarre delay in finishing that task and also made my bluetooth keyboard and the general user interface *a lot* more responsive, basically eliminating the need to double tap things because the device failed to register the first tap, which I'm sure a lot of people are familiar with.

This is very, very interesting.
Which configuration?
I do not know of any acceptable way to root the Max2, so in case Onyx must be pressed to expose that configuration. Or to provide an acceptable way to root the device.

The fact that taps are not always recognized - e.g., try Simon Tatham's Portable Puzzle Collection - makes the capacitive layer look cheap and faulty.

Can you please check the effects on the battery?

cartz · 08-19-2018, 08:42 PM

Great post. I bought my Boox Note for similar reasons. My linux knowledge is negligible though and I haven't yet attempted to root my device. But hopefully I'll be able to contribute something down the track.

whopper · 08-20-2018, 02:53 AM

which app did you use to change the governor?

elementarythree · 08-20-2018, 03:42 AM

I rooted with Kingroot together with the PC. It basically uses known exploits.
I heard it isn't that good and might be spyware, so I'll replace it with SuperSU later on if/when I have the time. Also thought about pulling .img files when running the stock rom to integrate magisk into them if possible. (Don't know if it is, I don't know much about Android yet)

I directly echoed the appropiate values into the proper /sys/devices/... files, it is linux after all. :-D Quick google brought up an free app called the "Kernel Adiutor" but I have no idea if it's good or not.

I have not much experience with mobile devices, I only have my smartphone a few months now after resisting for a long time and kinda got hooked on the whole mobile thing. Apparently the interactive scheduler is standard for many mobile devices, it has a lot of values to tweak and I played around with it a little earlier. The Tablet can clock down up to about 1.6 Ghz and all the way down to 126 Mhz (where it is most of the time with default values) and even when tweaking the interactive governor to be more sensible and clock up quickly when the load goes up (by using interface elements, for example) in my tests 126 Mhz just simply doesn't seem to be enough to have it feel responsive. The best results in responsiveness so far you seem to get if you set the minimum CPU frequency to 408 Mhz. The ondemand governor seems actually to be a little too aggressive in regards of keeping the clock up to maximum frequency, the same with the conservative governor. Would have to pull up a datasheet (if there is one publicly available, hadn't time to check) to see if the energy impact is actually all that critical, with lots of SoCs it kinda doesn't matter as long as they don't run at max clock all the time.

So far I haven't really noticed any massive issues regarding the battery life which seems already very tablet-esque and bad to begin with. The SoC this thing has is kinda slow and entry level, I'm actually surprised the battery life is as bad as it is. Feels wrong for a Battery that is allegedly 4000+ mAh, somehow - especially considering we only have an eInk screen to feed. WLAN seems to be the worst offender regarding battery life and will suck it dry in no time. I have honestly to say I'm a bit disappointed of the device and how it is put together, for how expensive it is. If there was anything even remotely comparable which would allow me to do Linux stuff and remote connect to my servers, I'd return the thing tomorrow. I saw the Dasung (sp?) paperlike screen but that thing is even less capable and more expensive.

EDIT: The temperature sensors of the battery/CPUs also don't seem to work correctly, they always read out temperatures between 18 and 19 degrees celsius. The room the tablet is in is warmer.

mdp · 08-20-2018, 04:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by elementarythree

I rooted with Kingroot [...] I heard it isn't that good and might be spyware, so I'll replace it with SuperSU later on if/when I have the time

It's reportedly an infestation, how can you be sure you will repair all the damages it has done after having unleashed it?

mdp · 08-20-2018, 04:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by elementarythree

So far I haven't really noticed any massive issues regarding the battery life which seems already very tablet-esque and bad to begin with

Well, the interest will be the difference in (actually ratio between) different settings...
If at 126 Mhz minimum the consumption is 100 per hour, how much will be at 408 Mhz?
It all depends on the wake mechanism - how efficiently the CPU decides to sleep: if it works well, 105%; if badly, 310%.
Measurements would be nice.

Quote:

Originally Posted by elementarythree

The SoC this thing has is kinda slow and entry level, I'm actually surprised the battery life is as bad as it is

It was a social conquest of historical proportions, like retirement pensions and maternity leaves, to have a RK3288. You may not have noticed that some competitors are still planning devices using i.MX6 SoloLite, single core low clock Cortex A9, still as a nail. And some people - who probably have a 99:1 "pondering to interacting" ratio - complained: the nail consumes less battery in absolute terms... Although the A17, RK3288 is more efficient.

Quote:

Originally Posted by elementarythree

Feels wrong for a Battery that is allegedly 4000+ mAh, somehow - especially considering we only have an eInk screen to feed

People want it light, for obvious reason. The problem in designing these devices is tradeoffs.
Sometimes very mysterious, or with some exceptions - Onyx probably expected people to believe that "two hardware buttons are more than enough... Cannot we merge the power button in the single "operate" button?" (Some of the new devices, notably the Note, are controlled by the power of thought, plus capacitive screen.)

Quote:

Originally Posted by elementarythree

WLAN seems to be the worst offender regarding battery life and will suck it dry in no time

Yes. Networking is best done through USB, and speed is one perk. It would be great to avoid battery recharges meanwhile, if you find the way. Getting that USB networking has not been straightforward: tethering is disabled in the settings. Although, if you have rooted the device (but you should identify a proper way), you can directly use `ifconfig` (see https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...&postcount=100).

Quote:

Originally Posted by elementarythree

I have honestly to say I'm a bit disappointed of the device and how it is put together, for how expensive it is. If there was anything even remotely comparable which would allow me to do Linux stuff and remote connect to my servers, I'd return the thing tomorrow. I saw the Dasung (sp?) paperlike screen but that thing is even less capable and more expensive.

The screen alone costs 450$ to the public, see https://shopkits.eink.com/page/2/?sw...rby=price-desc .
You can get other stuff in general, but not with EPD.
To call the Dasung "less capable" is an understatement: it is (basically) just the screen with an interface. (And does it cost 500$ ?)

elementarythree · 08-20-2018, 05:05 PM

I can just flatten it with the original firmware. I wanted to pull clean images anyways so not really a big thing. There's nothing important on it yet and it also doesn't have to have access to anything. Need to install the Android SDK to get into that.

I don't think the interactive governor is that bad I just think it could use some better tuning, I am not really all that familiar with it and good information is not a quick google away so I need to do some research. I'm positive the ondemand governor is too agressive in setting high clocks, which does make the device very responsive (the line has no problem keeping up and staying under the tip of the stylus in the notetaking-app for example) but even without much testing simply can't be great for battery life. I also noticed the tablet (which I will call this reader from now on, because it is) is constantly doing a lot of things in the background and that needs also some research because that certainly is not good for battery life either.

I would agree with a cheap, very low powered SoC if this was a simple eReader and sold as such, it is not really though, there's even android 6 development and usage of normal apps advertised on the page, to me it seems a little like Onyx themselves didn't know if they wanted to do an eReader or more and were a little bit too careful about the tablet part. It is a pretty unique device and I know that there are not really comparable options (especially not at that size) right now and I feel probably not in the future either. I know the screen is very expensive, I was looking into building something myself but then more or less figured that nothing I'd do myself would be better and most of all not cheaper than this. My solution would've also certainly not been that mobile. It was the best option, it's just a bit frustrating because it could have been more and I would have paid for more although I can understand they would be worried about straying too far from the eReader market, I wonder if this device is much of a success as is.

My personal plan was and is to use it as kind of a smart terminal (as opposed to a dumb terminal for people still familiar with that term) basically running SSH in Termux, with a mix of local programs and scripts if the need arises. I don't really plan to use the HDMI connector as I'll stay strictly in text mode, and it simply isn't necessary. Two hints for Termux: Base16-Greyscale and TERM=linux (as opposed to its 256 color emulation) gives you a few, well distinguishable shades of grey in lieu of colors. Also you can replace font.ttf in the termux folder and install any font you want.

Even after lots of searching I am afraid the driver simply doesn't expose charging control. I found every other important info about the battery, just nothing I can poke to affect the charging. I also wonder if there ever was an Accelerometer planned for it or if there even is one integrated but non-working. I haven't followed the development, somebody knows?

Another (a bit rundabout) solution would be to attach it to a powered USB hub which supports per-port power switching, which as the name suggests means the ports can be individually have their power toggled on and off programmatically. The exercise here would be then to write a bash script that runs on the tablet and keeps switching power on and off depending on where it is in the charging circle automatically. (somewhere in the 40% battery range) The downside here is that while most hub controllers can do it in theory, most hubs lack the actual parts to do it for cost cutting measures. Most manufacturers don't even bother rewriting the firmware and hubs will advertise the function while nothing happens when toggling it. Lots of hubs also only cut data lines on port switching and keep the +5 VBUS untouched, so you can't toggle the charging off. Good research is necessary and a fitting hub will not be a cheap one. Some hubs will also cut off everything which wouls also disable usb networking.

elementarythree · 08-23-2018, 06:43 AM

I had to kick of kingroot because it was causing *a lot* of CPU utilization on the Max2 with god knows what. (in fact, I didn't kick it off, I just went into recovery and flashed the newest firmware again, it was really dug in deeply in there - it is possible to remove it though but I just didn't wanna bother) From googling around regarding 6.0.1 exploits I couldn't find anything that interesting. I wonder what they used. My guess is they were rowhammering. Explains why the unlocking took a while, too. Don't install apps you don't trust, folks!

I read the datasheet of the charging chip in the Max2, charging is toggleable and it does expose that functionality in it's registers, I'd have to look into the linux drivers (which are open source and I think even mainlined) to see in what way you can access it. You're out of luck without root though, which of course isn't surprising. The charging chip takes the battery out of the path when it's above a specific voltage though and supplies the system directly from the USB port, so a full battery stops charging for a long time when the tablet keeps being connected to USB. You can set what the chip considers full so in a roundabout way you could stop charging that way, too. I guess this is standard for most of these chips today, still was nice to seen it written in black and white.

Results with CPU governors were somewhat of a let-down really. You (naturally, I guess) get more responsiveness with a higher base clock, but of course at cost of battery. Other schedulers are more aggressive which is good for background tasks and drawing but really doesn't help when you just start using the screen. A lot worse for the battery are screen updates really, if you keep those down and keep away from A2 mode, you get out as much of the device as you can expect, so ssh'ing writing text in emacs etc. is fine, really. The usual tips of not installing a lot of apps etc. also apply.

Getting past the shock of the somewhat slow SoC it really is decent as terminal. I enjoy it. Another small trick you can apply (if you have the hardware that supports it) is to use bluetooth thetering to your smartphone and use the internet/networking that way. Not as fast but a lot easier on the battery.

EDIT: Re: Termux. Base16 Greyscale is not really a good selection as it sets the main color to a shade of grey instead of black. You can edit color.properties in the ~/.termux subfolder directly and make your own. I left everything at default besides foreground color and background color. I don't know if I did something wrong but every time I edited that file it ended with just setting everything black on a new session. Adding termux-reload-settings for local sessions into ~/.bashrc fixed that. You can also change colors and fonts on the fly with that command. Termux also accepts .otf fonts, you just have to rename them to font.ttf. Setting TERMTYPE to linux is also a bad idea, because it stops mouse emulation from working and using the stylus in mc, emacs and such is just too nice. Maybe all of this is common knowledge already, but for me it was new and maybe it helps somebody. With this, it's possible to create commands in emacs via shell to switch the font on the fly. I wonder if it supports non-monospaced fonts which I like to use for org mode. Colors correctly configured, it is not necessary to use any contrast optimization etc. the software on the tablet offers. Very thin fonts which usually don't look that nice on screens look very nice on the Max2.

bsnick · 08-23-2018, 02:27 PM

Supersume Pro is an app whose sole purpose is to take a Kingrooted device and replace it with SuperSu while eliminating all traces of Kingroot. The downside of it, other than installing Kingroot to begin with, is that only the paid version will install Supersu permanently. With the free version you lose root as soon as you reboot.

whopper · 08-23-2018, 03:29 PM

super-sume pro cost just 4 bucks, I bought it to root the max 2 and it's awesome, no traces of king root, and supersu working perfectly.

elementarythree · 08-23-2018, 06:01 PM

Isn't supersu (since that one guy sold it) not also in the hand of some company? I honestly don't feel all that comfortable with a closed app wielding that kind of power on my system. I'd rather install Magisk but with a locked bootloader that sadly is impossible.

whopper · 08-24-2018, 06:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by elementarythree

Isn't supersu (since that one guy sold it) not also in the hand of some company? I honestly don't feel all that comfortable with a closed app wielding that kind of power on my system. I'd rather install Magisk but with a locked bootloader that sadly is impossible.

I understand you as because as far I read you, you want it for terminal work as a display and maybe working there with passwords and such can be a risk. But maybe installing supersu and migrating to magisk?

I am not sure if possible because I 've not digged it, but I think I've read multiple people on other phones installing suepersu just to install magisk and delete supersu later. Not sure if possible here or I just misread them, or you can't trust your device after a single install.

bsnick · 08-24-2018, 10:11 AM

Yes, use supersu as a stepping stone to something else. It's preferable to Kingsroot at least since the creator of supersu was still working on it for awhile (maybe still?) after the sale. 2.79 was the last pre-sale version, I think, so you could use that version. It would be great if you got Magisk working. I don't recall if the device needs to be rooted pre-install, or if magisk patching the bootloader roots it.

elementarythree · 08-24-2018, 12:20 PM

No, you here generally only have the option of either SuperSU or Kingroot, which both aren't ideal. Magisk would be great, needs an unlocked bootloader though, which is not a thing that's possible with the Max2, yet at least. Even the inbuilt onyx recovery mode doesn't offer anything interesting in that regard.

I can do quite a lot already with what is given but it would be nice to do things like mount remote filesystems and such, which you only really can do with root. Maybe I'll go the Kingroot - supersu root route, not ideal but at least older versions were used very widespread once upon a time and are probably safe to use. If the Tablet doesn't get access to the internet, the risk for anything really bad is probably minimal anyways.

I also tested the two XServer implementations that exist for Android. Works rather well with the downside that one is very unfinished and the other somehow doesn't work properly outside of A2 mode, which I don't quite get. (A2 mode really eats up fonts) I wonder if it's possible (with root of course) to kill the android interface and run an xserver instead. That would need a more complete chroot enviroment, tho.

08-19-2018, 01:58 PM	#1
elementarythree Enthusiast Posts: 26 Karma: 39999 Join Date: Aug 2018 Device: none	Snippets of Boox Max 2 knowledge I got this device last week because I always wanted to have an portable eInk computer I can run stuff like emacs on, and this is as close as a ready made solution that exists. The eReader and scribbling/drawing part of course is also interesting, but I gotta admit I got this mostly for Termux and Linux userland after having a lot of fun with that on an rooted LineageOS smartphone. After reading some of the threads here, I don't think I'm the only one. It'd be nice if we could collect some snippets of knowledge in this thread to make the device more into a computer experience, a bit for advanced Linux users maybe. To start things off, I have a command to get a rough estimation how fast a device is, by letting it calculate PI to 5000 digits: time echo "scale=5000; a(1)4" \| bc -l I know it's not incredibly accurate but it's a nice real life test to get an idea in what ballpark to put a CPU in and runs on almost everything that provides the tools and also gives you a difference between real time (how long the command ran in clock-time) and user time (how much the CPU actually spent on the process) no matter how busy the system is elsewhere. When a device does nothing or almost nothing real time and user time are usually very close. When running this command on the Boox Max2 I got a crazy discrepancy: while the device only took ~57 seconds to calculate Pi (which is quite ok for a mobile device, for comparsion, my i7 5820k needs about 10 seconds) it took about 25 minutes (!!!) of real time to actually finish the process. After rooting the tablet and rummaging around, I found the interactive CPU governor was to blame, which was set by the Onyx engineer to very aggressive values and keeping the speed of the CPUs low, probably for powersaving purposes. Setting the device to the more standard ondemand governor removed the bizarre delay in finishing that task and also made my bluetooth keyboard and the general user interface a lot* more responsive, basically eliminating the need to double tap things because the device failed to register the first tap, which I'm sure a lot of people are familiar with. So that's a neat trick. I have no idea which influence it has on battery life, it does not seem to be dramatic though so far as ondemand also clocks the CPUs down when nothing is happening. As the device is thin, made of plastic and weights almost nothing, I am not sure if it couldn't overheat when at this setting (which might also be a reason for the aggressive setting to begin with) so use at your own risk. I haven't noticed any heat problems with normal usage either though. If you are not that familiar with the command line, there are also apps to change these kernel settings. You will need root though. On my phone I have battery charging disabled when it is connected to usb, which is great for the battery as USB provides enough energy to keep my entire phone running. I'm trying to find a similar function with the charging circuit of the Max2 (would be nice in order to help the battery when used as a screen) but I'm not even sure the charging circuit is capable of it, or the driver exposes such a setting, at least I couldn't find anything so far. Gotta admit, the screen is very nice but everything around it is kinda meh, especially for the price. We'll see. I'd like to hear about your bits of wisdom!

08-20-2018, 03:42 AM	#5
elementarythree Enthusiast Posts: 26 Karma: 39999 Join Date: Aug 2018 Device: none	I rooted with Kingroot together with the PC. It basically uses known exploits. I heard it isn't that good and might be spyware, so I'll replace it with SuperSU later on if/when I have the time. Also thought about pulling .img files when running the stock rom to integrate magisk into them if possible. (Don't know if it is, I don't know much about Android yet) I directly echoed the appropiate values into the proper /sys/devices/... files, it is linux after all. :-D Quick google brought up an free app called the "Kernel Adiutor" but I have no idea if it's good or not. I have not much experience with mobile devices, I only have my smartphone a few months now after resisting for a long time and kinda got hooked on the whole mobile thing. Apparently the interactive scheduler is standard for many mobile devices, it has a lot of values to tweak and I played around with it a little earlier. The Tablet can clock down up to about 1.6 Ghz and all the way down to 126 Mhz (where it is most of the time with default values) and even when tweaking the interactive governor to be more sensible and clock up quickly when the load goes up (by using interface elements, for example) in my tests 126 Mhz just simply doesn't seem to be enough to have it feel responsive. The best results in responsiveness so far you seem to get if you set the minimum CPU frequency to 408 Mhz. The ondemand governor seems actually to be a little too aggressive in regards of keeping the clock up to maximum frequency, the same with the conservative governor. Would have to pull up a datasheet (if there is one publicly available, hadn't time to check) to see if the energy impact is actually all that critical, with lots of SoCs it kinda doesn't matter as long as they don't run at max clock all the time. So far I haven't really noticed any massive issues regarding the battery life which seems already very tablet-esque and bad to begin with. The SoC this thing has is kinda slow and entry level, I'm actually surprised the battery life is as bad as it is. Feels wrong for a Battery that is allegedly 4000+ mAh, somehow - especially considering we only have an eInk screen to feed. WLAN seems to be the worst offender regarding battery life and will suck it dry in no time. I have honestly to say I'm a bit disappointed of the device and how it is put together, for how expensive it is. If there was anything even remotely comparable which would allow me to do Linux stuff and remote connect to my servers, I'd return the thing tomorrow. I saw the Dasung (sp?) paperlike screen but that thing is even less capable and more expensive. EDIT: The temperature sensors of the battery/CPUs also don't seem to work correctly, they always read out temperatures between 18 and 19 degrees celsius. The room the tablet is in is warmer. Last edited by elementarythree; 08-20-2018 at 03:49 AM.

08-23-2018, 06:43 AM	#9
elementarythree Enthusiast Posts: 26 Karma: 39999 Join Date: Aug 2018 Device: none	I had to kick of kingroot because it was causing a lot of CPU utilization on the Max2 with god knows what. (in fact, I didn't kick it off, I just went into recovery and flashed the newest firmware again, it was really dug in deeply in there - it is possible to remove it though but I just didn't wanna bother) From googling around regarding 6.0.1 exploits I couldn't find anything that interesting. I wonder what they used. My guess is they were rowhammering. Explains why the unlocking took a while, too. Don't install apps you don't trust, folks! I read the datasheet of the charging chip in the Max2, charging is toggleable and it does expose that functionality in it's registers, I'd have to look into the linux drivers (which are open source and I think even mainlined) to see in what way you can access it. You're out of luck without root though, which of course isn't surprising. The charging chip takes the battery out of the path when it's above a specific voltage though and supplies the system directly from the USB port, so a full battery stops charging for a long time when the tablet keeps being connected to USB. You can set what the chip considers full so in a roundabout way you could stop charging that way, too. I guess this is standard for most of these chips today, still was nice to seen it written in black and white. Results with CPU governors were somewhat of a let-down really. You (naturally, I guess) get more responsiveness with a higher base clock, but of course at cost of battery. Other schedulers are more aggressive which is good for background tasks and drawing but really doesn't help when you just start using the screen. A lot worse for the battery are screen updates really, if you keep those down and keep away from A2 mode, you get out as much of the device as you can expect, so ssh'ing writing text in emacs etc. is fine, really. The usual tips of not installing a lot of apps etc. also apply. Getting past the shock of the somewhat slow SoC it really is decent as terminal. I enjoy it. Another small trick you can apply (if you have the hardware that supports it) is to use bluetooth thetering to your smartphone and use the internet/networking that way. Not as fast but a lot easier on the battery. EDIT: Re: Termux. Base16 Greyscale is not really a good selection as it sets the main color to a shade of grey instead of black. You can edit color.properties in the ~/.termux subfolder directly and make your own. I left everything at default besides foreground color and background color. I don't know if I did something wrong but every time I edited that file it ended with just setting everything black on a new session. Adding termux-reload-settings for local sessions into ~/.bashrc fixed that. You can also change colors and fonts on the fly with that command. Termux also accepts .otf fonts, you just have to rename them to font.ttf. Setting TERMTYPE to linux is also a bad idea, because it stops mouse emulation from working and using the stylus in mc, emacs and such is just too nice. Maybe all of this is common knowledge already, but for me it was new and maybe it helps somebody. With this, it's possible to create commands in emacs via shell to switch the font on the fly. I wonder if it supports non-monospaced fonts which I like to use for org mode. Colors correctly configured, it is not necessary to use any contrast optimization etc. the software on the tablet offers. Very thin fonts which usually don't look that nice on screens look very nice on the Max2. Last edited by elementarythree; 08-23-2018 at 07:34 AM.

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08-19-2018, 08:42 PM	#3
cartz Zealot Posts: 127 Karma: 446460 Join Date: Jul 2007 Device: Inkpalm 5 Mini	Great post. I bought my Boox Note for similar reasons. My linux knowledge is negligible though and I haven't yet attempted to root my device. But hopefully I'll be able to contribute something down the track.

08-20-2018, 02:53 AM	#4
whopper Addict Posts: 350 Karma: 22726 Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: Europe Device: Boox max 2	which app did you use to change the governor?

08-20-2018, 05:05 PM	#8
elementarythree Enthusiast Posts: 26 Karma: 39999 Join Date: Aug 2018 Device: none	I can just flatten it with the original firmware. I wanted to pull clean images anyways so not really a big thing. There's nothing important on it yet and it also doesn't have to have access to anything. Need to install the Android SDK to get into that. I don't think the interactive governor is that bad I just think it could use some better tuning, I am not really all that familiar with it and good information is not a quick google away so I need to do some research. I'm positive the ondemand governor is too agressive in setting high clocks, which does make the device very responsive (the line has no problem keeping up and staying under the tip of the stylus in the notetaking-app for example) but even without much testing simply can't be great for battery life. I also noticed the tablet (which I will call this reader from now on, because it is) is constantly doing a lot of things in the background and that needs also some research because that certainly is not good for battery life either. I would agree with a cheap, very low powered SoC if this was a simple eReader and sold as such, it is not really though, there's even android 6 development and usage of normal apps advertised on the page, to me it seems a little like Onyx themselves didn't know if they wanted to do an eReader or more and were a little bit too careful about the tablet part. It is a pretty unique device and I know that there are not really comparable options (especially not at that size) right now and I feel probably not in the future either. I know the screen is very expensive, I was looking into building something myself but then more or less figured that nothing I'd do myself would be better and most of all not cheaper than this. My solution would've also certainly not been that mobile. It was the best option, it's just a bit frustrating because it could have been more and I would have paid for more although I can understand they would be worried about straying too far from the eReader market, I wonder if this device is much of a success as is. My personal plan was and is to use it as kind of a smart terminal (as opposed to a dumb terminal for people still familiar with that term) basically running SSH in Termux, with a mix of local programs and scripts if the need arises. I don't really plan to use the HDMI connector as I'll stay strictly in text mode, and it simply isn't necessary. Two hints for Termux: Base16-Greyscale and TERM=linux (as opposed to its 256 color emulation) gives you a few, well distinguishable shades of grey in lieu of colors. Also you can replace font.ttf in the termux folder and install any font you want. Even after lots of searching I am afraid the driver simply doesn't expose charging control. I found every other important info about the battery, just nothing I can poke to affect the charging. I also wonder if there ever was an Accelerometer planned for it or if there even is one integrated but non-working. I haven't followed the development, somebody knows? Another (a bit rundabout) solution would be to attach it to a powered USB hub which supports per-port power switching, which as the name suggests means the ports can be individually have their power toggled on and off programmatically. The exercise here would be then to write a bash script that runs on the tablet and keeps switching power on and off depending on where it is in the charging circle automatically. (somewhere in the 40% battery range) The downside here is that while most hub controllers can do it in theory, most hubs lack the actual parts to do it for cost cutting measures. Most manufacturers don't even bother rewriting the firmware and hubs will advertise the function while nothing happens when toggling it. Lots of hubs also only cut data lines on port switching and keep the +5 VBUS untouched, so you can't toggle the charging off. Good research is necessary and a fitting hub will not be a cheap one. Some hubs will also cut off everything which wouls also disable usb networking.

08-23-2018, 02:27 PM	#10
bsnick Zealot Posts: 119 Karma: 42 Join Date: Aug 2015 Device: Onyx M96+, T68+, Max2, YP2, HiSense A2 Pro	Supersume Pro is an app whose sole purpose is to take a Kingrooted device and replace it with SuperSu while eliminating all traces of Kingroot. The downside of it, other than installing Kingroot to begin with, is that only the paid version will install Supersu permanently. With the free version you lose root as soon as you reboot.

08-23-2018, 03:29 PM	#11
whopper Addict Posts: 350 Karma: 22726 Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: Europe Device: Boox max 2	super-sume pro cost just 4 bucks, I bought it to root the max 2 and it's awesome, no traces of king root, and supersu working perfectly.

08-23-2018, 06:01 PM	#12
elementarythree Enthusiast Posts: 26 Karma: 39999 Join Date: Aug 2018 Device: none	Isn't supersu (since that one guy sold it) not also in the hand of some company? I honestly don't feel all that comfortable with a closed app wielding that kind of power on my system. I'd rather install Magisk but with a locked bootloader that sadly is impossible.

08-24-2018, 10:11 AM	#14
bsnick Zealot Posts: 119 Karma: 42 Join Date: Aug 2015 Device: Onyx M96+, T68+, Max2, YP2, HiSense A2 Pro	Yes, use supersu as a stepping stone to something else. It's preferable to Kingsroot at least since the creator of supersu was still working on it for awhile (maybe still?) after the sale. 2.79 was the last pre-sale version, I think, so you could use that version. It would be great if you got Magisk working. I don't recall if the device needs to be rooted pre-install, or if magisk patching the bootloader roots it.

08-24-2018, 12:20 PM	#15
elementarythree Enthusiast Posts: 26 Karma: 39999 Join Date: Aug 2018 Device: none	No, you here generally only have the option of either SuperSU or Kingroot, which both aren't ideal. Magisk would be great, needs an unlocked bootloader though, which is not a thing that's possible with the Max2, yet at least. Even the inbuilt onyx recovery mode doesn't offer anything interesting in that regard. I can do quite a lot already with what is given but it would be nice to do things like mount remote filesystems and such, which you only really can do with root. Maybe I'll go the Kingroot - supersu root route, not ideal but at least older versions were used very widespread once upon a time and are probably safe to use. If the Tablet doesn't get access to the internet, the risk for anything really bad is probably minimal anyways. I also tested the two XServer implementations that exist for Android. Works rather well with the downside that one is very unfinished and the other somehow doesn't work properly outside of A2 mode, which I don't quite get. (A2 mode really eats up fonts) I wonder if it's possible (with root of course) to kill the android interface and run an xserver instead. That would need a more complete chroot enviroment, tho.

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