Likebook Mars in 2022

[bookaboo]

Do people still use this device?

Long story short this device was not used by myself until last night and sat in my home for a long time. It's been a year and a half or even more since I've used it yesterday

It is on the firmware 2.3 and I don't know what the new updates are like, a little scared to update in case it ruins anything.

I like this device but I'm just curious if it's still being used by many people

[bazz2004]

My suggestion is to leave it alone. Avoid looking for and installing updates. If it does go wrong you are pretty much on your own. See which e-reader app available via the Google play store suits you best then get some mileage out of the device. I have the Alita but I just use it to read epub books. The "upgrade" to Android 8.1 was pretty much a non event but very stressful to do.

[Quoth]

KOreader for epubs on it. You can download & install apk for Android direct from git with built in browser. The default ereader is good for PDFs. The Google Framework doesn't need to be on even for install

I also installed these from playstore after turning Framework on:
Kindle
Kobo
Google PlayBooks (needs framework to run at all)
Bolinda Borrow box for County Library

k-9mail. A real email client. Android email stores all the settings on Google and uses a Google server, allowing Google to scan all email.

lichess (needed settings on eink refresh changed).

Jota Text Editor (works with touch or BT keyboard)

I disabled Android Keyboard (AOSP) after adding "Hackers Keyboard" and Dictionary. The default settings & theme need changed on HK.

Added "External Keyboard Helper Pro" for remapping / features on BT keyboard. Bought it years ago as my Android 6 phone only had US for external USB keyboard. Only Android app I ever bought. So logged into Android using same Google ID as ancient phone.

I have EinkBro browser, but I can't see much advantage.

It's had 2 x OTA upgrades. BYRead-V3 1.0-2021042314

I think the WiFi OTA upgrades OK, but a downloaded upgrade or changing Android is riskier. My was Android 8.1.0 when bought last year. Kernel 2021-04-23 4.4.103

[Quoth]

I temporarily stop (not kill) gfvs-mtp-volume-monitor on Linux Mint with Mate so caja doesn't automount and then Calibre works. Other Android devices (MTP) are OK for Calibre just with clicking "unmount" on icon, but not Mars.

MTP is a horrid protocol invented for DRM compared to USBMS.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by bookaboo

Do people still use this device?

Long story short this device was not used by myself until last night and sat in my home for a long time. It's been a year and a half or even more since I've used it yesterday

It is on the firmware 2.3 and I don't know what the new updates are like, a little scared to update in case it ruins anything.

I like this device but I'm just curious if it's still being used by many people

I suggest you DO update. There are a lot of fixes since 2.3. The firware is some 3.1.1 version now.

[ottischwenk]

Originally Posted by bookaboo

It is on the firmware 2.3 and I don't know what the new updates are like, a little scared to update in case it ruins anything.

Likebook Firmware Updates

[Quoth]

You need to log in to use those links

Bitte melden Sie sich an, um diesen Link zu sehen.

Please log in to see this link.

So there is a 3.1.1

Firmware Updates:

Datei ins Geräte Hauptverzeichnis kopieren, nach update.zip umbenennen,

Einstellungen, Systemaktualisierung, Lokale Erkennungsaktualisierung aufrufen.

Firmware Update V3.1.1:

Datum 17. 8. 21:

But inaccessible,

[Quoth]

There is
T80D-V3.1.1 (2021081711) .zip
749.9 MB

(786.4 M byte on disk)

on https://mega.nz/file/rdJV1QbZ#nUwsfD...bdB-JjXC3V_RCs

But how can someone know this is valid and not tampered with?

In absence of an OTA update or from Boyue Website I can't see a good reason to upgrade from my current V3.1.0-2021042314 as it works.

[Quoth]

Instructions & details of 3.1.1 here, but goodereader isn't reliable.
https://goodereader.com/blog/electro...xes-typography

Edit: seems to be same FW as ottischwenk linked to on an earlier thread, but a different link

https://mega.nz/file/SBAmCDaJ#Q6pGrX...sStLQ136-ymx2k
Edit exact same number of bytes, but I didn't do a file compare.

[Quoth]

I took a small risk:
Renamed a COPY of the download to update.zip
Copied it to SD card via USB (using 2nd pane in Caja file manager)
Went to Update via GUI user setting and selected from memory.
-- pop-up message, about checking and reboot. So it found update.zip on root of SD card.
Nothing happened. So update again. This time it did something.
-- Powered off, updating progress bar, powered on.
-- Screen blank apart from top status and notification claimed SD card missing. I waited, because I've seen that on phone when slow to boot.
-- Home screen icons eventually appeared and SD card OK.
-- Version is now 3.1.1 instead of 3.1.0

Everything seems OK

[salamanderjuice]

Originally Posted by Quoth

I temporarily stop (not kill) gfvs-mtp-volume-monitor on Linux Mint with Mate so caja doesn't automount and then Calibre works. Other Android devices (MTP) are OK for Calibre just with clicking "unmount" on icon, but not Mars.

MTP is a horrid protocol invented for DRM compared to USBMS.

Except with USBMS most people's computers couldn't even mount their phone or we'd have to go back to having silly things like having an exFAT data partition that apps can't use.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by salamanderjuice

Except with USBMS most people's computers couldn't even mount their phone or we'd have to go back to having silly things like having an exFAT data partition that apps can't use.

I don't understand that and I've programmed microprocessors to use USB stack. MTP is a terrible protocol, either laziness or a desire to use a ready made DRM is why Android adopted it from Microsoft's Zune. Google bought in Android, but I'm not sure when Android adopted MTP, because Android was initially just a GUI like Zune or QT Phone edition and a VM to run full Java apps rather than the cut down Java Mobile Symbian was forced to use by Sun. Android simply ignored the restriction and attempted to hide breaking of the Sun (later Oracle) licence. Full Java was only for desktops. So the VM was re-written. Google was able to quickly get all the existing Java Mobile developers that had been targeting Symbian.
But I have no idea why MTP was chosen except it was an already existing scheme more for DRM than to hide native file system.

Every gadget I have with USBMS storage works better on Windows & Linux than MTP ones.

[salamanderjuice]

Because USBMS requires the host OS to understand the filesystem of the device. It's why you can't plug an HFS+ or EXT4 formatted thumb drive or external HDD into a Windows PC and expect it to work without third party software. MTP doesn't expose the underlying filesystem of the device so it doesn't matter that you plugged your EXT4 formatted Android device into your Windows PC. And you want something complicated like an Android smartphone to have a good modern journaling filesystem like EXT4 since its just a pocket computer and it's not 1995. It also means you can easily hide system files from dumb users that will try to delete them for extra free space since they aren't using /boot without having to have separate system partition that probably will need to be expanded sometime down the line causing it's own set of problems. It's also safer about users pulling out devices while files are still being written which causes a few issues on another brand of eReader...

There's pros and cons to each, I wouldn't buy an external HDD that used MTP but I also don't want an Android phone running FAT32 and getting it's data corrupted every time I sneeze.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by salamanderjuice

Because USBMS requires the host OS to understand the filesystem of the device. It's why you can't plug an HFS+ or EXT4 formatted thumb drive or external HDD into a Windows PC and expect it to work without third party software. MTP doesn't expose the underlying filesystem of the device so it doesn't matter that you plugged your EXT4 formatted Android device into your Windows PC.

It's true that USBMS usually exposes the real file system. However MTP is a terrible alternative.