Boox (M92) developer community?

[seaniko7]

I'm writing directly to epdc framebuffer, also I used imx xorg display driver instead of fbdev.

Scren updates are handled by screen_updater daemon, which constatnly refreshes screen at 1bpp (~300ms) or 4bpp (~900ms). Moreover, it can be configured to check which parts of screen changed and perform partial update.
I need to write gui control panel which will use domain sockets or dbus to change screen_updater preferences...

[janek]

Sorry for unsubstantial post, but I have to say it: wow!

[underscore]

@seaniko7
can we count on your project available for...september?
You are working on open source software, maybe we can help testing...

[seaniko7]

@underscore, sure thing, I'll upload system image, but treat it as alpha version at most.

[VAM]

Hi all! New to the forum and a new M92 owner. I am interested in following what is happening in this thread, because I want to use more capabilities of the M92 platform. I am a software/hardware engineer by profession. I am not sure how much I can contribute, my life is very full with projects already but I will at least be following!

Thanks,
Vernon

[gattaca]

Originally Posted by seaniko7

Here's something slightly different :

M92 Unlocker. Fixed update kernel, which bypasses password restrictions.
It allows one to install updates from any vendor.

Please keep in mind that installation of ArtaTech FW is illegal on generic M92 devices (i.e. not "Black Pearl") due to additional features such as IVONA TTS and Cloud Manager.

Installation :

1. Grab this zip : https://www.dropbox.com/s/11smdrxknpoxhdc/update.zip
2. Unpack it to root of your internal storage memory
3. Run flash.oar from your M92

Now you can install any update.

I tried this on my M92 Black Pearl, and it didn't work. It couldn't find any updates (I put a firmware update zip on my external sd) and froze on the No updates found screen. I had to hit the reset button on the back. Any recommendations?

[hans1]

Originally Posted by erkkia

The application source code and binaries are attached, for lack of a better name it's called "Serial VNC".
It's tested on Windows 7 64bit and Boox M92 firmware 1.7.20120607.

I hope somebody finds it useful! And a big thanks all the others who have contributed to the Boox m92 developer community so far.

Thanks for the serial VNC; I've been using it for m92<->ubuntu for some time and it adds great value. However, I have tried to compile it on the "Raspberry Pi" hardware but failed (I installed, using apt-get, gradle but couldnt install eclipse due to some dependencies; not familiar with these tools).

Using serial vnc directly (from the zip archive) fails (I suppose the libNRJavaSerial_legacy.so and libNRJavaSerial.so must be recompiled for the arm architecture)? This is the library output:
# ldd /tmp/libNRJavaSerial_legacy_root_0/libNRJavaSerial_legacy.so
not a dynamic executable
# file /tmp/libNRJavaSerial_legacy_root_0/libNRJavaSerial_legacy.so
/tmp/libNRJavaSerial_legacy_root_0/libNRJavaSerial_legacy.so: ELF 32-bit LSB shared object, ARM, version 1 (SYSV), dynamically linked, not stripped

Do you have any hints on how to compile it for the raspberry pi, or can it be cross-compiled (I'm not familiar how to do this; suggestions much appreciated)?

[kodomo]

Nice
I'm really happy to see that there's a growing developer community gathering around the M92.

One warning w.r.t. encrypting/decrypting files on the M92, though: You should be aware that deleting files from solid state drives (such as SD-Cards, etc.) is not trivial at all (see [http://www.tomshardware.com/news/sol...on,12252.html] for an explanation).
So unless you decrypt the files to RAM for reading, there'll likely be ways for folks who know what they're doing to recover the unencrypted document. (Just be aware of this and don't use the described procedure for really secret documents )

Cheers and keep up the good work!

Originally Posted by bartp5

I thought I'd share some scripts I wrote to password-protect files and folders on my boox. I made the scripts such that when encrypting a file the script automatically packs in any annotations and notes related to the file. When installed it creates two applications in the applications menu, one to encrypt and one to decrypt. The encrypting script lets you select a file of which it then creates a self-extracting script-archive (in the directory where the original files were). I made this program primarily to encrypt pdf files together with the annotations and wanted to make it easy to open, edit, close and re-encrypt the file. I therefore made the script-archive such that when clicking the archive it prompts for a password, attempts to de-crypt your file, and upon success open the file. After editing the file the file is automatically re-encrypted when the file is closed. This automatic opening and re-encryption currently works for txt files (nice for saving your passwords in a text file on your boox) and pdf files (with the old pdf-reader). This functionality can easily be extended to other file-types For all other file-types and for directories clicking the script once de-crypts, clicking it again re-encrypts the files.

For the encryption it uses ncrypt (AES-encryption). After encrypting files the original files are deleted (use at your own risk and keep backups). Note however that in flash memory there is no way to reliably access a specific physical location due to the flash transition layer. This makes it impossible to do a secure delete of a single file in flash memory (i.e. after encryption and subsequent deletion of the original files, large chunks of the original files are still floating around in the flash memory and could be accessed with specialized software). So bear that in mind when you encrypt your multi-million dollar secrets.

The script use slightly modified versions of the previously published scripting primitives. The filebrowser was adapted to be able to open directories (a lazy hack really, created a button to select a directory) and the input widget was adapted to return an empty string when the escape of close button is clicked (so one can abort typing a password and my scripts will abort too) and I made a bugfix which made the switching between plain text and password input a bit awkward.

The installer script includes the scripting archives (and asks before overwriting anything). I attached a zip file with the program and installer scripts and a patch file so you can patch the source of kodomo's scripting primitives.

Hope you can make sense of this post

[kodomo]

*sigh* did they really remove the sources? We were trying hard to get them to comply with GPL and publish the complete kernel sources.

Anyhow - impressive work, seaniko7
I couldn't convince you by any chance to complete the kernel building howto on the software development wiki page to make it more straightforward for other folks contributing?

[https://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/Boox...ernel_modules]

Cheers,
kodomo.

Originally Posted by seaniko7

Yup, it will be possible without modifying host os, although installation of improved kernel is necessary.

I don't think I'll get touchscreen working, as its interpreter is based on software layer (touch_server, touch_client using unix socket). But if I manage to enable OTG support it won't be an issue...

If you would like to contribute, here are forked kernel sources (it's a pity, Onyx removed them from their original repository, which obviously is a GPL violation) :
https://github.com/intromatyk/public_kernel/tree/iMX508

[kodomo]

Hi underscore!

There's quite a collection of pointers and infos on wiki pages [https://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/Boox_M92] .

You can help out keeping the overview e.g., by linking relevant posts you stumble across there

Cheers!

Originally Posted by underscore

@seaniko7

When you will finish the port, unless you convince debian or ubuntu to take care of...
can you produce a minimal website for the distribution and updates also?
In this way that can be indexed by search engines.

it is very difficult to follow the efforts of the many m92 coders here around, by following
the threads searching for dropbox urls.
And see if you or Booxstor or others got some fresh news.

Potentially i see a linux distribution like the killer firmware.
Does Calibre work on m92 ? :-)
More than for editing the occasional metadata, would be nice for searching books..

[bartp5]

Originally Posted by Pakal

It was the newest terminal I've found, but on i62HD Firefly(same CPU as M92) trying betty.oar makes the screen flash and device reboot.

Does anyone have a terminal that works on i62HD?

Sorry for the late reply. I do not have a i62HD so I cannot test. AFAIK the SDK for the i62 is the same as for the M92, so I see no reason why it should not work. Can you say a bit more about what you do? The thing is that even if the program would not be compatable to the i62, I do not see how that could lead to a reboot. How it should work is:
1: Unpack files to your boox
2: run install.oar (this actually should flicker the screen and reboot)
3: go to applications where there should be an icon for the the terminal emulator.

Before running install the program cannot work unless you change betty.oar to point to the location of the file betty.

[bartp5]

After building the openssh server/client and rsync (see this post), I needed an easy way to start and stop wifi from scripts so I can make syncing scripts that connect to the internet all by themselves. I took apart onyx's "device server" and, without claiming I know what I am doing , I hacked a program for doing just that.

To get wifi up do:
wifi_primitive -up
To bring it down do:
wifi_primitive -down
To bring wifi up, run a single command and bring it down, do;
wifi_primitive -c <command>

As usual, the program is thoroughly untested i.e., use at your own risk.

[bartp5]

It turns out that the busybox wget is rather stripped down and does not do things like --post-data. I compiled and statically linked gnu wget for my boox to get a fully functional wget. I now wrote myself a script which all by itself connects to internet, logs in with my newspaper's website and downloads today's paper .

[Kirith]

bartp5, how to install wget? Where it should be in the book?

bartp5, как установить программу wget? Где она должна находиться в книге?

[bartp5]

It doesn't really matter where it is. The executable is self contained,i.e., if you call it with its full path it will work from anywhere. Usually I put the stuff I compile in /usr/local/bin/.

Edit: Note that the stripped down busybox wget is already in your boox and in your path so just typing wget will get you the stripped down version. Best put this wget somewhere outside your path and point to it by typing the whole path.