By OS I take it this includes a kernel and is a full replacement of the native Kobo OS (Nickel)? If so, then I wonder if it's possible to get Kobos to boot directly into KOReader.
This is very timely, as I recently purchased a Kobo device. One painpoint has been syncing sideloaded books between my phone and Kobo. I am using Readest sync with KOReader but I'd love to see a more seamless solution. Hoping that Quill can offer some sort of sync in the future.
I tend to think kindle is an anathema but I also think I'm heavily invested in their product, and so is a lot of the world.
Being able to strip drm is good. But, it's stepwise refinement warfare. In the meantime, being able to run a copy of the Google Android kindle reader, and obtain a valid licence-to-read key is useful. I'm not disparaging calibre or apprentice Alf, I'm just pointing out the more compliant path also exists.
That's what boox does. It's clear android can do this. I suppose what I'm asking is can these debian style OS run enough emulation/compatibility libraries to run an Android kindle app?
My dream for an open e-book reader is to have some kind of graphical OPDS browser as a substitute for the commercial storefronts offered by Amazon/Rakuten/etc. If you could host and publish your own ebook library (using BookLore or something similar), then explore and fetch content off of it with the same UI polish as you can get from a corporate vendor (complete with cover art galleries, carousels for recent releases and recommendations and the like), I think that'd make e-readers so much more appealing and usable for diehard FOSS folks.
Unfortunately this is mostly for very old versions of Kobo e-readers! Specifically the ones that use an SD Card for internal storage. Very sad since I'm very much in the market for an e-Ink device that I can just use offline to read my .pdf and .epub files. Does anyone have suggestions?
Apparently they're working on a new OS based on the Pine64 Pinenote* but it's almost $400!
I'm desperately searching for an e-book reader and i wonder if someone here has a good answer. I'd like a something I can root and or at least run arbitrary userland code on. I want a size that's good for edc in a small backpack or handbag, maybe 7 - 11", pen support would also be really nice, does any such thing exist?
Here's people installing Tailscale binaries and gracefully working around a missing kernel module and the missing iptables binary on the Kobo Sage / Kobo Libra 2:
Considering the Kobo ereaders have bluetooth antennas, it is really too bad that they cant be put on the FindMy network to find a lost ebook. Open source firmware should enable that though since the FindMy protocol has been reverse engineered.
I'd love to try this, but (tangential) have they fixed their screen issues? I sent back three Kobo Elipsa 2E units in a row before just getting my money back due to bright point spots on the lit-up screen, which are reportedly caused by dust caught between layers during assembly. It's a bit disappointing to spend over €400 on a device several times and discover that the manufacturer apparently can't even bother assembling them in a clean room to avoid messing up the primary feature of the device.
I bought a Kobo because it felt one of the most hackable e-readers but I ended up using the stock software with a single but very important change: I edited a configuration file to point the API to my BookLore instance.
This gives me access to all of my ebooks and preserves all the functionalities of the stock software, which is perfectly adequate for my needs.
It turns out that what I wanted all along was the ability to seamlessly read books I buy from any source, not any deeper hacking of the OS.
Kudos to Kobo for keeping their system so open. These days it’s not that common
I bought a kobo for myself about 18months ago and I'm hooked. I have since bought two more for gifts and 3 friends have bought them on my recommendation. I have never before been such a vocal (if unintentional) ambassador for a tech gadget.
Why so passionate, I hear you ask? Pretty much exactly the reasons you specify - unlike other hardware, I actually can do what I want with it.
And now I'm wondering what this Quill OS is about. Thanks Kobo!
I have a few of these Kobo Touch readers that haven't been touched in years, so no idea if the batteries even still work. Even though I'd never tried them before, I got 3 as a local shop (WHSmiths in the UK) was having a clearance sale as they were being discontinued, so I got 3 of them for less than the price of 1 would normally cost, and I'd read they were quite hackable.
I really liked the idea of using them, and while I did take one on holiday once, I found that I just couldn't put up with the slow speed of page transitions and the screen flickering every page turn.
For the speed issue, if it's limited by the time to render a page, I wondered why they wouldn't just cache the rendered previously page and pre-generate the next page while you were reading the first.
I understand why the page flickers, but it always seemed to me that doing partial refreshes of the screen would be much better aesthetically. Maybe the more recent ones actually do that, although I got the impression that manufacturers had just moved back to LCD screens because people liked colours more than battery life. Certainly not long after I bought my Kobo, my mum upgraded from an e-ink Kindle to an LCD one which seemed like a step backwards to me, but she was much happier with it.
So, just wondering if any of the issues around page turning are addressed in this custom OS and app. If so, I'll dig around in my junk box to try it out. Otherwise I guess they're likely to stay there for another decade!
From what I gathered the (germany centric?) available "Tolino" eReaders are just a rebranding of Kobo (or the other way round). So depending on the model the OS should also run on Tolinos right?
I’m trying to leave the Kindle world. I’ve already stopped buying books on Amazon, instead getting them elsewhere and using Calibre to strip the DRM and sideload them.
What I really want is a physical eink reader that can load books from the bookshop.org ebook store. Then I can support both authors and bookstores.
Their website claims that they have an integration with Kobo on the way, but it’s said this for about a year now with no progress.
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[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 53.3 ms ] threadPart of the motivation derived from newer Kobos deploying with SecureBoot, making it tough to reflash them.
Integration with libraries is the killer feature of ereaders IMO
Being able to strip drm is good. But, it's stepwise refinement warfare. In the meantime, being able to run a copy of the Google Android kindle reader, and obtain a valid licence-to-read key is useful. I'm not disparaging calibre or apprentice Alf, I'm just pointing out the more compliant path also exists.
That's what boox does. It's clear android can do this. I suppose what I'm asking is can these debian style OS run enough emulation/compatibility libraries to run an Android kindle app?
Apparently they're working on a new OS based on the Pine64 Pinenote* but it's almost $400!
https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Category:Kobo
There is a config file on the stock OS that you just need to change, and you can point the Kobo store to your own instance of Calibre Web.
This lets you sync and download your own books to the device over wifi.
I played around with KOReader a bit but found the stock software simpler to use. All I really need is to not be tied to an ebook store.
That’s awesome. Going to add this change to my Kobo - I already self host a bunch of stuff on a Pi, will add Calibre to the list
https://blog.videah.net/my-e-reader-setup/#tailscale-vpn
https://dstaley.com/posts/tailscale-on-kobo-sage/
Does anyone know what the mainline support is like nowadays, and whether widely packaged software can make it usable as an ebook reader?
0. https://github.com/Quill-OS/quill
It turns out that what I wanted all along was the ability to seamlessly read books I buy from any source, not any deeper hacking of the OS.
Kudos to Kobo for keeping their system so open. These days it’s not that common
Why so passionate, I hear you ask? Pretty much exactly the reasons you specify - unlike other hardware, I actually can do what I want with it.
And now I'm wondering what this Quill OS is about. Thanks Kobo!
I really liked the idea of using them, and while I did take one on holiday once, I found that I just couldn't put up with the slow speed of page transitions and the screen flickering every page turn.
For the speed issue, if it's limited by the time to render a page, I wondered why they wouldn't just cache the rendered previously page and pre-generate the next page while you were reading the first.
I understand why the page flickers, but it always seemed to me that doing partial refreshes of the screen would be much better aesthetically. Maybe the more recent ones actually do that, although I got the impression that manufacturers had just moved back to LCD screens because people liked colours more than battery life. Certainly not long after I bought my Kobo, my mum upgraded from an e-ink Kindle to an LCD one which seemed like a step backwards to me, but she was much happier with it.
So, just wondering if any of the issues around page turning are addressed in this custom OS and app. If so, I'll dig around in my junk box to try it out. Otherwise I guess they're likely to stay there for another decade!
What I really want is a physical eink reader that can load books from the bookshop.org ebook store. Then I can support both authors and bookstores.
Their website claims that they have an integration with Kobo on the way, but it’s said this for about a year now with no progress.