Kobo Vox Hacking Progress

[hieronymos]

And I am starting to be seriously ! fed up with the MAC address issue.
It's an easy and important fix.

Rant.
Rant.
Rant.

[jefftheworld]

Originally Posted by hieronymos

512MB RAM, of which are 370MB available - 170MB sytem apps = 200 MB for a chroot (starts swapping earlier) = not fun working on LibreOffice. :-)

Also, a native Linux would make it easier to check what we can do with the USB plug.

However, I'm getting a little frustrated, so I'll take a break until Kobo provides the GPL sources that they have to provide. What they did with uboot should be documented.

Runs perfectly smoothly, I find.

[hieronymos]

I'm not really interested in crippling this beautiful device more than it already is.
And every day that they steal from the public domain, I am more and more wondering if I want to participate in that piracy by using their device. GPL has a price and it is contribution. Totally unacceptable.

Seriously, I still have 11 days to go.

[PeterT]

I thought Android used Apache Software License 2.0 and not GPL ?

[FriendlyFire]

It is Apache; only the kernel is GPL 2.0.

[hieronymos]

Full information:

Spoiler:

Package License
---------- ----------
kernel/imx GPL
platform/bionic Apache2
platform/build Apache2
platform/bootable/recovery Apache2
platfomr/bootable/bootloader/uboot-imx GPL v2
platform/external/alsa-lib LGPL
platform/external/alsa-utils GPL
platform/external/dhcpcd Internet Systems Consortium (distributable)
platform/external/e2fsprogs GPL
platform/external/genext2fs GPL
platform/external/linux-atheros-wifi GPL
platform/external/linux-lib GPL v2
platform/external/ppp BSD
platform/external/sqlite Apache2
platfomr/external/systemtap GPL
platform/external/wpa_supplicant_ath GPL
platform/external/wpa_supplicant GPL
platform/external/bluetooth/bluez GPL
platform/frameworks/base Apache2
platform/hardware/alsa_sound Apache2
platform/hardware/libhardware Apache2
platform/hardware/libhardware_legacy Apache2
platform/hardware/mx5x GPLv2, LGPL v2.1, Apache 2.0
platform/hardware/ril Apache2
platform/packages/apps/Camera Apache2
platform/packages/apps/fsl_imx_demo Apache2
platfomr/packages/apps/Gallery3D Apache2
platform/packages/apps/Music Apache2
platform/packages/apps/Settings Apache2
platform/packages/apps/SoundRecorder Apache2
platform/packages/providers/MediaProvider Apache2
platform/system/core Apache2
platform/system/extras Apache2
platform/system/vold Apache2
platform/system/wlan/atheros GPLv2

So without GPL, the thing wouldn't go beyond producing warmth (kernel). Then, if on, it wouldn't know what to do (uboot). Then, you wouldn't hear no sound at all (alsa). You couldn't store nor read anything on the SD card (ext). You couldn't turn on the wifi (atheros). Then, you probably couldn't connect to your wifi router (wpasupplicant).
If all that didn't exist - who cared about Android?
Multiple years of manpower all over the world went into the development, testing, and bug-filing for these components (and even a few hours of mine, filing a few bugs for alsa and atheros) and you can't just go on and pretend you did that all yourself.

A few examples of how it is supposed to be:
http://www.sourceforge.net/motorola/
http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/custom...deId=200203720
http://htcdev.com/devcenter/downloads
or at least http://www.barnesandnoble.com/u/Term...uch/379003279/

compared to:
https://github.com/kobolabs/Kobo-Vox

It takes 5 minutes.

P.S.: Seriously? It already happened? https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=94213

[void_warranty]

Since I've gotten a few hints out of this forum, I thought it'd be fair for me to actually register and contribute too!

I tried some USB OTG cables (amazingly hard to get - hardly anyone's heard of these things) plugged into the Vox and various USB things plugged in to them: keyboard, memory stick, camera. I also tried plugging in a powered hub. No go either way; I suspect a kernel module's missing.

I also swapped my internal SD card for a 32G one, and it's working fine - storage settings is showing that I have 27.66GB available space, yay! I dd'ed the original SD card's contents onto one plugged into the external slot (as luck would have it, the Sandisk 8G speed 4 card I had handy was a perfect match for what the Kobo has inside). Disassembled the Vox to swap in my copy and it booted just fine, so I bought a 32G speed 10 SD card and repeated the dd. On a netbook running Ubuntu Linux that has an SD card slot, I extended partition #4 to include the extra space. Disassembled my Vox yet again and popped it in... seems to work fine!

John

[hpulley]

Very cool, so you could have 32+32=64GB total! 8+32 =40 is still lots for me now but might have to try something later.

When will Android support the 2TB SDXC cards I wonder? 2TB that you can lose in a crack in the floor LOL

[hieronymos]

After cooling off, I decided to play the game and I had a look at what happened during the last update. As pokee had pointed out somewhere else, the recovery doesn't work anymore so I got a little curious.

This is what happened:
dd if=/cache/u-boot.bin of=/dev/block/mmcblk0 bs=1024 skip=1 seek=1
dd if=/cache/uImage of=/dev/block/mmcblk0 bs=1048576 seek=1
dd if=/cache/uramdisk.img of=/dev/block/mmcblk0 bs=1048576 seek=11
dd if=/cache/recovery-uramdisk.img of=/dev/block/mmcblk0 bs=1048576 seek=12
package_extract_file("system.img", "/dev/block/mmcblk0p1");
package_extract_file("recovery_backup.img", "/dev/block/mmcblk0p2");

Funny thing is: I'm not even sure the kernel changed! Thanks for the hint, Victor!

So from here I can start compiling a uboot that I configured to boot from SD, dd it there, reboot, hope it works, dd the old uboot and reboot into Android.
Also for custom ROMs and recoveries all the information is there. No need to worry about locked bootloaders or kernels.

void_warranty: did you get any dmesg for the USB? The kernel support is there (/proc/config.gz)...

[void_warranty]

hieronymos: nothing in dmesg I could recall seeing. I just tried it again, and nothing is logged. However, I don't have the powered hub any more to try that configuration again (it was a loaner from a friend).

John

[hieronymos]

Fff... maybe that darned uboot again then. I just requested a copy of it from a Kobo rep that I found in a thread from last year where somebody (more vehemently than me it seems) already complained about the sources. At the rate of their cooperation (we asked for a working recovery and got no button combination at all), it is probably easier just to maintain an own uboot with button combinations, fastboot (and USB?) enabled if anybody wants to get a custom ROM going.
Will post it back here.

[pulsar]

Given that Volume+ and Power don't do the recovery anymore (with the update), I think we should figure out how to do that in some other way. E.g., via adb. Before the update, I already tried "adb reboot recovery", but it didn't do the reset. I don't know anything about adb recovery - what is it trying to do? At the very least, it expects /recovery to be mounted, right? But what should be in the /recovery - an image with a booloader? I saw one of the init.rc on Kobo mounts /dev/block/mmcblk0p2 as /recovery - so how about doing that over adb, and then running "adb reboot recovery"?

[hieronymos]

Usually the thing with button combinations should be handled by uboot. ADB probably tells uboot to go into one of the three default modes - that is recovery, bootloader or normal system. But since these modes don't seem to exist in uboot, it defaults back to the normal system. Somehow, in order to apply updates, the system can still reboot into those modes - you could of course decompile the update check apks and have a look around there, but you shouldn't do that (unless that mode comes OTA as well). As of now, adb reboot bootloader and adb reboot recovery don't do anything apart from a plain reboot.
The easiest solution seems really to be to get on everybody's nerves each time they make an update, ask for the new version of uboot that they modified, get the different modes back in there and dd it just like they do.
/recovery and stuff is all there - it just doesn't do much AND there is no normal documented way to get in.

[taming]

Originally Posted by void_warranty

suspect a kernel module's missing.

I also swapped my internal SD card for a 32G one, and it's working fine - storage settings is showing that I have 27.66GB available space, yay! I dd'ed the original SD card's contents onto one plugged into the external slot (as luck would have it, the Sandisk 8G speed 4 card I had handy was a perfect match for what the Kobo has inside). Disassembled the Vox to swap in my copy and it booted just fine, so I bought a 32G speed 10 SD card and repeated the dd. On a netbook running Ubuntu Linux that has an SD card slot, I extended partition #4 to include the extra space. Disassembled my Vox yet again and popped it in... seems to work fine!

John

John, I am an idiot about Linux, but I can learn. I also have Linux on a USB stick so I can boot into Linux on one of my PCs. Could you please do a step-by-step for people like me who might want to do this. As an aside, at one point, with earlier eINK Kobo devices, we had to create a Linux SD card to beta test. If I could learn to do that, I am pretty sure I can learn to do this.

Thanks.

[void_warranty]

taming: I'll post this in two parts, since it'll be longish. The first part is some additional tips about disassembling the Vox.

*** IMPORTANT ***
This voids your warranty. I am not in any way responsible if you follow these instructions and destroy your Vox!
*** IMPORTANT ***

Tools I used to take it apart: fingernails, a digital camera, a smallish Phillips screwdriver (without magnetic head!), a plastic fork. The camera was for taking periodic pictures so I could remember how it all went back together :-)

Make sure the Vox is powered off first. The back cover is, as previous posters have said, held on with snaps and some persistence with fingernails gets it off. The biggest thing you'll see at this point is the battery. It's held on with sticky tape which was quite strong, and you can't see it to begin with. I used the handle end of a plastic fork to pry the battery up without doing any damage to the battery or case. The tape's sticky enough to hold the battery down again afterward. Unplug the battery too, making note of which way the plug goes in for later.

There are a million small screws to undo at this point. Two are under where the battery was. They all seemed to be the same size, so you can mix them up with impunity.

The toughest part was the next one - getting access to the main board. Essentially you're trying to push the screen out from the plastic rim (gently!). I found it easiest to start at the end with the power button. There's an exposed black plastic square there you can push on a bit. The buttons are attached to the plastic rim and don't fall out when you succeed. (Whew.)

You should now be at the point where you see what a previous poster took a picture of, the main board along with the internal SD card slot. The slot's a typical click-in/click-out one; I didn't realize that until after I'd eased the card out the first time. Oh well.

Putting the Vox back together's much easier and just the same process in reverse. Make sure the screws around the external SD slot are tight or you'll have trouble getting the external card in and out when the case is back on.

You can also (carefully) test a new card without putting the case back on; there's no microswitches or anything to prevent this. You just plug in the battery and fire it up.

John