KOReader running on BQ/Fnac devices

[pazos]

KOReader running on BQ/Fnac devices

BQ no longer exists. Instructions here no longer work. If you're running stock you're out of luck.

People running Developers FW are ok as long as don't flash back stock. Feel free to ask for help if you manage to brick your device (but, how?). There're ways to fix it without reverting to stock.

Also if somebody wants to send me an old device (from the list below, in original instructions) send me a PM. I can't promise a workaround but I promise I will take a look

Original instructions (last updated in May 2021)

Spoiler:

The following devices are supported by KOReader.

• BQ Cervantes Touch | Fnac Touch(untested)
• BQ Cervantes Touchlight | Fnac Touch Plus(tested)issue:
• BQ Cervantes 2013 | Fnac Touch Light (tested)
• BQ Cervantes 3 | Fnac Touch Light 2 (tested)
• BQ Cervantes 4 (tested)

Update (feb 2021): developers fw for legacy models is no longer available. Currently there's no way to install 3rd party software on these models unless you already installed developer fw before.


Installation instructions
Usb storage support
Touchscreen info
Wireless info


available sources
bq qt stock reader (QBookApp) https://github.com/bq/cervantes
bq qt e-ink support https://github.com/bq/cervantes-qt/t...drivers/einkfb
bq mx508 hardware abstraction layer https://github.com/bq/cervantes/tree/master/bqHAL
safemode tool https://github.com/pazos/cervantes-safemode

[pazos]

First time Installation instructions

You'll need a sdcard.

1. Install Developers firmware and enable telnet
2. Download KOReader dependencies attached in this post
3. Download KOReader from github
4. Copy KOReader and dependencies to the sd card
5. Insert the SD card on your ereader and start a telnet connection.
6. Uncompress/install KOReader and KOReader dependencies:
   
   

   mv /mnt/sd/ko* /mnt/private
   cd /mnt/private
   tar -xvf ko*.tar.gz
   dpkg -i *.deb
   unzip koreader-cervantes*.zip

Congratulations, You are ready to start KOReader

You can run KOReader from telnet with

/mnt/private/koreader/koreader.sh

. This will stop the stock ereader while KOReader is running and return to it when KOReader exits.

If you are happy with KOReader and want to use it at boot you need to do;

cp /etc/rc.local /etc/rc.local.backup
cp /mnt/private/koreader/koreader-standalone.sh /etc/rc.local

.

Note: ko-deps.tar.gz contains generic prerequisites. ko-deps-safemode-latest.tar.gz contains the latest version of the safemode tool, and is only required if you want to enable USB Mass Storage support under KOReader

[pazos]

Touch Protocol

All devices support Single Touch Protocol. The Cervantes 4 (and maybe other recent models) emits both Single Touch and Multitouch B input events. The device reports:

evtest /dev/input/event1 
Input driver version is 1.0.1
Input device ID: bus 0x18 vendor 0x0 product 0x0 version 0x0
Input device name: "Neonode zForce touchscreen"
Supported events:
  Event type 0 (EV_SYN)
  Event type 1 (EV_KEY)
    Event code 330 (BTN_TOUCH)
  Event type 3 (EV_ABS)
    Event code 0 (ABS_X)
      Value    619
      Min        0
      Max     1072
    Event code 1 (ABS_Y)
      Value    832
      Min        0
      Max     1448
    Event code 24 (ABS_PRESSURE)
      Value      0
      Min        0
      Max     1048
    Event code 47 (ABS_MT_SLOT)
      Value      0
      Min        0
      Max        1
    Event code 48 (ABS_MT_TOUCH_MAJOR)
      Value      0
      Min        0
      Max      255
    Event code 49 (ABS_MT_TOUCH_MINOR)
      Value      0
      Min        0
      Max      255
    Event code 52 (ABS_MT_ORIENTATION)
      Value      0
      Min        0
      Max        1
    Event code 53 (ABS_MT_POSITION_X)
      Value      0
      Min        0
      Max     1072
    Event code 54 (ABS_MT_POSITION_Y)
      Value      0
      Min        0
      Max     1448
    Event code 57 (ABS_MT_TRACKING_ID)
      Value      0
      Min        0
      Max    65535
Properties:
Testing ... (interrupt to exit)

A single touch will output:

Event: time 51393.692783, type 3 (EV_ABS), code 57 (ABS_MT_TRACKING_ID), value 1607
Event: time 51393.692786, type 3 (EV_ABS), code 53 (ABS_MT_POSITION_X), value 350
Event: time 51393.692788, type 3 (EV_ABS), code 54 (ABS_MT_POSITION_Y), value 249
Event: time 51393.692789, type 3 (EV_ABS), code 48 (ABS_MT_TOUCH_MAJOR), value 8
Event: time 51393.692790, type 3 (EV_ABS), code 49 (ABS_MT_TOUCH_MINOR), value 8
Event: time 51393.692792, type 3 (EV_ABS), code 0 (ABS_X), value 249
Event: time 51393.692793, type 3 (EV_ABS), code 1 (ABS_Y), value 722
Event: time 51393.692795, type 1 (EV_KEY), code 330 (BTN_TOUCH), value 1
Event: time 51393.692796, type 3 (EV_ABS), code 24 (ABS_PRESSURE), value 1024
Event: time 51393.692797, -------------- SYN_REPORT ------------
Event: time 51393.694611, type 3 (EV_ABS), code 57 (ABS_MT_TRACKING_ID), value -1
Event: time 51393.694615, type 1 (EV_KEY), code 330 (BTN_TOUCH), value 0
Event: time 51393.694616, type 3 (EV_ABS), code 24 (ABS_PRESSURE), value 0
Event: time 51393.694617, -------------- SYN_REPORT ------------

KOReader only supports SingleTouch for these devices

[pazos]

Wireless Support

stock software uses connman to manage wireless connections. KOReader uses wpa_supplicant.

Wireless chipset is always powered.
More info

[pazos]

Unlock

By default the device is locked (no shell access, no external booting, store, adobe drm) and firmware updates need to be signed with BQ private key.

BQ provides instructions to install a Developers edition firmware on https://blog.bq.com/es/bq-ereaders-developers-program/.

Note 1: Bq pages went down, probably forever. Please use http://web.archive.org/web/202007200...opers-program/ instead.

Note 2: In february 2021 firmware files hosted on amazon cloud are no longer available

Send me a private message and I can pass you a link to the file. Only available for Cervantes 2013, Cervantes 3 and Cervantes 4.

You need to install Developers edition firmware to be able to install KOReader or other software. This means you'll lose the nubico store and adobe drm support.

[pazos]

If you installed the last version of safemode tool you will see a new menu entry on KOReader (see first image attached)

If you enter in storage mode you will see the second image. You can now connect the usb cable to your computer and do the changes you want. Once you're done you can extract your usb drive (like you do with any other USB drive on your operative system) and then press the home button to return back to KOReader.

New books will be readily available for you to read!

[pazos]

Create a new folder on the usb partition called dict and copy inside the dictionaries you want to install in KOReader (stardict files, do not create subfolders for different dictionaries).

Dictionaries will be moved to KOReader installation when you return back to KOReader.

[brno]

Hi,
I just tried to install koreader on my cervantes 4, using the latest version 2020.03.2.
When I execute the code I get this error :

root@MiWiFi-R3G-srv:/mnt/private# tar -xvf ko*.tar.gz
tar: ko-deps.tar.gz: Not found in archive
tar: Exiting with failure status due to previous errors

[brno]

I managed to solve the problem concerning the tar command, using the following code

mv /mnt/sd/ko-deps.tar.gz /mnt/private
mv /mnt/sd/ko-deps-safemode-latest.tar.gz /mnt/private
mv /mnt/sd/koreader-cervantes-v2020.03.2.zip /mnt/private
cd /mnt/private
tar -xvf ko-deps.tar.gz
tar -xvf ko-deps-safemode-latest.tar.gz
dpkg -i iproute_20120521-3+b3_armel.deb
dpkg -i iputils-ping_20101006-1+b1_armel.deb
dpkg -i safemode_0.5.0_armel.deb
dpkg -i unzip_6.0-8+deb7u5_armel.deb
dpkg -i safemode_0.6.0_armel.deb
unzip koreader-cervantes-v2020.03.2.zip

But when I execute the command

root@MiWiFi-R3G-srv:/mnt/private# dpkg -i iproute_20120521-3+b3_armel.deb

Here is the error I get:

(Reading database ... 11316 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking iproute (from iproute_20120521-3+b3_armel.deb) ...
dpkg-deb (subprocess): decompressing archive member: internal gzip read error: '<fd:4>: incorrect data check'
dpkg-deb: error: subprocess <decompress> returned error exit status 2
dpkg: error processing iproute_20120521-3+b3_armel.deb (--install):
cannot copy extracted data for './sbin/rtacct' to '/sbin/rtacct.dpkg-new': unexpected end of file or stream
Errors were encountered while processing:
iproute_20120521-3+b3_armel.deb

By the way, I'm using a PC and I use Putty to connect to the reader via Telnet. And I don't know much about Linux :-)

[pazos]

Originally Posted by brno

Hi,
When I execute the code I get this error :

root@MiWiFi-R3G-srv:/mnt/private# tar -xvf ko*.tar.gz
tar: ko-deps.tar.gz: Not found in archive
tar: Exiting with failure status due to previous errors

Shall I proceed to the next lines?
Thanks in advance for your help!

Duh! My fault. When I wrote the instructions for the first time there was only a single attachment. Then I updated the second attachment and modified the instructions to match, but I never actually run the tar command to uncompress both attachments at the same time .

So, what happens is: you have both ko-deps.tar.gz and ko-deps-safemode-latest.tar.gz on /mnt/private and globbing doesn't work as expected and tries to uncompress ko-deps.tar.gz from within the other container. Again, duh!

What you need to do is uncompress both, with:

tar -xvf ko-deps.tar.gz
tar -xvf ko-deps-safemode-latest.tar.gz

And continue with the next lines (dpkg -i to install prerrequisites, unzip to unzip koreader). Hope it helps.

edit: use the exact command for dpkg -i. That should work!. If not do apt-get -f install. That will fix dependencies between packages. If that still doesn't work please check that your deb file is not corrupted. You can download it again or fetch another version as long as is compatible with Debian Wheezy with armel ABI. Prerequisites here are just to make things easier but there should be a few mirrors online for these packages.

[brno]

Thanks, it works!
Some .deb files where apparently corrupted in ko-deps.tar.gz
I had to get other copies on the internet.
If this can be useful for other people, I found them in 2 places:
- https://cloudfront.debian.net/debian.../main/u/unzip/
- http://ftp.attica.net.nz/kali/pool/main/i/

Just one thing doesn't work as I expected: when I switch to "Black Mode" in koreader, only the colors of the pictures are inverted. The text remains in black color against white screen. Is it a bug or a limitation of the bq reader itself?

[pazos]

Originally Posted by brno

Just one thing doesn't work as I expected: when I switch to "Black Mode" in koreader, only the colors of the pictures are inverted. The text remains in black color against white screen. Is it a bug or a limitation of the bq reader itself?

Thanks for reporting. It is a regression as it worked fine a couple of months ago. I didn't notice the change until now. Opened a ticket to track the issue: https://github.com/koreader/koreader/issues/5963

[brno]

Originally Posted by pazos

Thanks for reporting. It is a regression as it worked fine a couple of months ago. I didn't notice the change until now. Opened a ticket to track the issue: https://github.com/koreader/koreader/issues/5963

Great news, if it can be corrected.

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.

[Frenzie]

@brno Should be fixed in today's nightly.

[brno]

Originally Posted by Frenzie

@brno Should be fixed in today's nightly.

Thanks! What I call a quick response!