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#1 |
Junior Member
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Karma: 35134
Join Date: Aug 2024
Device: Tolino Shine 5
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Fastboot / replace kernel with clara colour one possible
Hey there,
I have a tolino shine 5 (same as kobo clara BW) and just played around with it. I came here to share my findings. They are valid from firmware 5+, but some parts seem to be there before already. Beware: The following commands can brick your device _permanently_! Use at your own risk and own understanding. Also, you might accidentally hard reset your device deleting _all_ data! Fastboot: Device is fastboot enabled. Accessing is a little bit tricky: * Turn device off and wait a moment to be sure it's off. * Unplug the USB cable * run your fastboot command like `fastboot oem readlkver` already, it will wait for the device * Turn device on, keeping power button pressed * very shortly after (within a few tenths of a sec) plug in the USB cable * LEDS should flash very quickly. * Keep power button pressed a bit longer, you'll see fastboot working. Feel free to release power button now. To run a second fastboot command, unplug and replug USB cable. The device stays in fastboot mode. With `fastboot reboot` you'll boot to bootloader which will overwrite system partition or maybe even hard reset your device!. To actually reboot, long-press the power button. * `fastboot flash system_a path_to_img` flashes system * `fastboot flash boot_a path_to_img` flashes kernel You should not try to flash uboot or tee or bl2 - breaking any of those partitions renders fastboot unusable. I went further and flashed the spa-colour kernel on my spa-bw device (via fastboot - so I knew if it flashed something I could revert by flashing the old one ![]() Actually, flashing via fastboot is way quicker than using the update.tar method. I compared the device trees of colour and bw before: They _seemed_ to be equivalent despite colour having a dual core, 2 GHz CPU (bw: single core, 1 GHz). I did not see that the touch screen controller is initialized with a different register setting - now my touch screen is inverted on the X-Axis and I didn't bother finding a way to reverse (I guess flashing back old kernel would work). Unfortunately, my second CPU does not come up: Code:
lscpu Architecture: armv7l Byte Order: Little Endian CPU(s): 2 On-line CPU(s) list: 0 Off-line CPU(s) list: 1 Vendor ID: ARM Model name: Cortex-A53 Model: 4 Thread(s) per core: 1 Core(s) per socket: 1 Socket(s): 1 Stepping: r0p4 CPU max MHz: 2000.0000 CPU min MHz: 600.0000 BogoMIPS: 15.60 Flags: half thumb fastmult vfp edsp neon vfpv3 tls vfpv4 idiva idivt vfpd32 lpae evtstrm aes pmull sha1 sha2 crc32 I have seen a `/proc/cpuinfo` dump of a dual core tolino vision colour which also only showed _one_ cpu core - I expect there could be a problem with the kernel that Kobo might not have noticed themselves ![]() |
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#2 |
Junior Member
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Karma: 35134
Join Date: Aug 2024
Device: Tolino Shine 5
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I did a bit of research about the touch screen:
The difference is the CY_MT_FLAG_INV_Y Bit which invertes the Y axis before registering the touch, so it is a pure software thing, but unfortunately I cannot change this parameter after booting. So the only way to use this properly is to invert that again in KoReader or proxy the input device ![]() |
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#3 |
Junior Member
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Karma: 35134
Join Date: Aug 2024
Device: Tolino Shine 5
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I could not withstand...
Code:
touch_mirrored_x = false; It was way to easy. Seems like I'll run with 2 GHz from now on until the next firmware update :-) |
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#4 |
Junior Member
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Karma: 35134
Join Date: Aug 2024
Device: Tolino Shine 5
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I attached a boot log of my Kobo Clara BW bootet with the Kobo Clara Colour kernel. Maybe someone spots why the second CPU is not coming up?
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#5 |
Junior Member
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Karma: 35134
Join Date: Aug 2024
Device: Tolino Shine 5
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Okay, I just got confirmation that for Tolino vision color (=Kobo Libra Colour) it is the same - lscpu:
Code:
Architecture: armv7l Byte Order: Little Endian CPU(s): 2 On-line CPU(s) list: 0 Off-line CPU(s) list: 1 Vendor ID: ARM Model name: Cortex-A53 Model: 4 Thread(s) per core: 1 Core(s) per socket: 1 Socket(s): 1 Stepping: r0p4 CPU max MHz: 2000.0000 CPU min MHz: 600.0000 BogoMIPS: 52.00 Flags: half thumb fastmult vfp edsp neon vfpv3 tls vfpv4 idiva idivt vfpd32 lp ae evtstrm aes pmull sha1 sha2 crc32 |
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#6 |
Junior Member
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Karma: 35134
Join Date: Aug 2024
Device: Tolino Shine 5
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Before any rumours are spread: Maybe I am wrong. On said vision colour the second core might have been turned off by koreader. I'll slow down here and verify again first. Sorry for the noise!
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#7 | |
Bibliophagist
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Karma: 153006036
Join Date: Jul 2010
Location: Vancouver
Device: Kobo Sage, Libra Colour, Lenovo M8 FHD, Paperwhite 4, Tolino epos
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Quote:
If this is correct, there is not second CPU on the Clara BW. |
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#8 |
Junior Member
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Karma: 35134
Join Date: Aug 2024
Device: Tolino Shine 5
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While this could be true, I have following indicators to it not being true:
- bw & color have the exact same cpu core voltages for the frequencies they share - so the MT8113L is likely not another "lower power" process. So it is unlikely, that the cores are not similarly capable as the other one. I dod not see any stability problems in my tests so far, but I didn't try long. - If you search the internet for MT8113L it likely doesn't exist - Even if it exists, I can't believe it makes sense to save a few cents per piece and need a different stack of PCBs for that. the ntx firmware file is different for bw & color - also there might be a hwconfig bit doing some initialisation that doesn't allow the second core to come up on my device. Or you are just right and it doesn't exist ![]() |
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#9 |
Junior Member
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Karma: 35134
Join Date: Aug 2024
Device: Tolino Shine 5
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So a last update on the CPU thingy:
First of all, the Tolino Vision Color / Kobo Libra Colour really has a dual core CPU. I am sorry for spreading the rumours of it not working, I was not aware that Koreader is actually shutting down the cores when idling. I also compared the hwconfig between those and could not spot a relevant difference. So: * Either there is a difference in the NTX firmware binary disabling the second core on mine * Or it _actually_ does not exist. I stop here now. Still good to know it's possible to overclock to 2 GHz by replacing the kernel, as long as you accept the quirks with the touch screen inversion. Some speed data: (start of display change/update finished, recorded at 30 fps) 2GHz: Epub, Koreader, Normal page flip: 4/9 frames, 6/11 frames 5/10 frames going from cover page to next page: 6/11 frames Going back to cover: 30/37 frames 1GHz: Epub, Koreader, going from image page to next page: 7/13 frames Going back to image: 26/31 frames Normal page flip: 6/11 frames 5/10 frames So... I am really curious why there was no actual speed improvement, honestly it even felt quicker with the fast CPU, but Koreader is really nice already. Nickel @ 1 GHz, same epub: page flip: 13/18 13/18 14/19 cover load: 22/30 cover leave: 14/19 Wow... |
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