KOReader running on BQ/Fnac devices

[pazos]

Originally Posted by brno

Do you think that the Home button could have the same behaviour as in the bq firmware: the double press that puts the reader in standby mode is really useful, and the long press that puts the light on is nice too ?
This would be great but I don't know if koreader allows this and if it is reasonable or not to implement it.

Nope, key events are mapped to a single action. You can remap each button to the single thing you want following https://github.com/koreader/koreader/wiki/Keymapping.

[brno]

Originally Posted by brno

Thanks! What I call a quick response!

Solved, thanks!

[brno]

Originally Posted by Frenzie

@brno Should be fixed in today's nightly.

I just installed it... Solved, thanks !

[paagtui]

Hi,

new to this forum. I have a Cervantes Touch Light and the original reader app is (let's be polite) suboptimal. I have read the thread on installing this KOReader on my device and well, it has come to mind that maybe the idea could be to try to re-create the full installation image from scratch (kernel, HAL, libraries and KOReader).

The reader HW is nice enough not to produce additional e-waste and a cleanly produced alternative distro could be the way to go...

I would have to refresh some neurons ;-) but it wouldn't be the first time I create a Linux from scratch.

What is the status regarding information on the different Cervantes devices?

Thanks a ton, /PA

[Frenzie]

Last time I checked that was all on https://blog.bq.com/es/bq-ereaders-developers-program but it seems to have been removed. Maybe @pazos knows more.

[pazos]

Originally Posted by paagtui

Hi,

new to this forum. I have a Cervantes Touch Light and the original reader app is (let's be polite) suboptimal. I have read the thread on installing this KOReader on my device and well, it has come to mind that maybe the idea could be to try to re-create the full installation image from scratch (kernel, HAL, libraries and KOReader).

The reader HW is nice enough not to produce additional e-waste and a cleanly produced alternative distro could be the way to go...

I would have to refresh some neurons ;-) but it wouldn't be the first time I create a Linux from scratch.

What is the status regarding information on the different Cervantes devices?

Thanks a ton, /PA

Hi, the company died. Stock firmware should still work for unDRMed books if you activated yout unit before nubico went down (which happened a few months after Bq's dead). Not sure about DRM/Adobe stuff.

Based on some reports in PMs activation of new units doesn't work anymore. Not sure what happens if you factory reset a previously activated unit, but IT SEEMS A VERY BAD IDEA TO TRY.

People that installed Developers firmware before nubico shutdown are ok. FW wise the device is pretty indestructible. I have copies to restore BQ dev fw for the Cervantes2013, Cervantes3 and Cervantes4.

I'm afraid that people still in stock FW will have a brick, but I'm not sure if there's a way to jailbreak using the serial port. If somebody wants to send me a unit I can give it a try.

[paagtui]

> Hi, the company died.

I know

> Stock firmware should still work for unDRMed books if you activated yout unit before nubico went down (which happened a few months after Bq's dead). Not sure about DRM/Adobe stuff.

I have my own programs to create ebooks from the "gutenbergs" (us, au and de) which gives me a lot of reading space - mainly projekt-gutenberg.de which has a lot of books I should have read in school ;-)

This is why I say that maybe the idea is to get the Linux source, probably some drivers from bq's github and create an alternative truly open-source distro for this device and avoid e-waste.

[pazos]

Originally Posted by paagtui

This is why I say that maybe the idea is to get the Linux source, probably some drivers from bq's github and create an alternative truly open-source distro for this device and avoid e-waste.

Developers FW is already Debian Wheezy (7). All free software except for the wifi firmware blob and a little utility to read info from the ntx header on disk. The wifi blob is mandatory if you want wifi. The other tool is trivial to rewrite or to skip it. See https://github.com/NiLuJe/FBInk/blob...id.c#L479-L496

People that have already installed developers firwmare don't need to worry about e-waste. KOReader is very well supported and is going to receive updates for a long time.

The problem is with people running stock right now. Please post here if you find a way to run 3rd party software on stock.

[paagtui]

I'm running stock 7.00 and -I know- it sucks... Page breaks are random and that makes the reading comfort disappear. However, the HW isn't that ugly.

I'm not using nubico nor any other store (for that I have a Kobo). I create my ebooks myself from the *gutenberg.* (au,de,us) sites. SO yes, I'm basically re-reading things I (should have) read in school - that was +/- in the stone age :-)

I'd like to explore the possibility of creating a 100% open source firmware for this device with a nice doc, so that anyone can create it and keep it updated. As a side effect, we might strip off many things and optimise it. Turn off the WIFI for good and forget about the IP stack, etc. That should win us a couple of cycles and minutes in the battery life.

Is this really SciFi?

[pazos]

Originally Posted by paagtui

Is this really SciFi?

YES. You can make a good novel of it.

You need to defeat public key cryptography if you want to flash a firmware not signed by BQ.

Or figure out an exploit based on system vulnerabilities to get acess to the system. In that case, if all goes well, you can get RW acess to the root filesystem, so you can tweak the stuff in there. But rootfs is one of the 8+ internal partitions that make the FW.

The 1st option is trully SciFi. The 2nd option is in the realm of reality. But the 2nd option only makes possible to run your own programs on top of stock FW, not replacing the FW itself.

Please open a thread elsewhere, maybe it gets more attention than here. This thread contains instructions to install KOReader that require Developers FW installed and thus not available anymore for new lurkers.

[BalooRJ]

Glad I am not the only one using the BQ Touch Lite. However, pazos would you be able to write up instructions on how to update KOReader that has already been loaded and is working on an existing BQ device? Since I cannot get wifi working on mine running KOReader loaded with developers firmware, I would like to know how to update KOReader on the device manually. Thank you.

[Frenzie]

You can just overwrite it with a newer version.

[pazos]

Originally Posted by BalooRJ

Glad I am not the only one using the BQ Touch Lite. However, pazos would you be able to write up instructions on how to update KOReader that has already been loaded and is working on an existing BQ device? Since I cannot get wifi working on mine running KOReader loaded with developers firmware, I would like to know how to update KOReader on the device manually. Thank you.

Repeat steps 3-6 from https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...05&postcount=2

If your device actually boots to KOReader directly you'll need to press the home button when you see the little dots on screen during boot to enable USBNet.

[pazos]

Originally Posted by Frenzie

You can just overwrite it with a newer version.

KOReader is installed to /mnt/private. That's not exported via USB. The internal partition exported via USB (/mnt/public) is mounted noexec IIRC.

[BalooRJ]

Originally Posted by pazos

Repeat steps 3-6 from https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...05&postcount=2

If your device actually boots to KOReader directly you'll need to press the home button when you see the little dots on screen during boot to enable USBNet.

Thanks so much pazos! My device does boot to KOReader directly, so I'll activate USBNet when booting KOReader, or simply use telnet through the developer's firmware in the BQ Reader's app to extract the KOReader zip.