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The grumpy editor's e-book readerThe grumpy editor's e-book readerPosted Jul 22, 2009 16:29 UTC (Wed) by Hanno (guest, #41730)Parent article: The grumpy editor's e-book reader
Is there any linux-based device with an e-ink display that allows users to install binaries?
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The grumpy editor's e-book reader Posted Jul 22, 2009 16:51 UTC (Wed) by grahame (subscriber, #5823) [Link]
Both the Sony Reader and the Sony Librie run Montevista Linux, and people
have 'hacked' both to allow you to run programs off the memory card. I managed to get cairo (plus other bits and bobs) going on my Librie, writing into the framebuffer and then using the magic ioctl to cause the e-ink screen to update.
In the end I didn't produce anything amazingly useful, as the builtin book
PDF is actually a really terrible ebook format, EPUB is much more sensible. PDF
The grumpy editor's e-book reader Posted Jul 22, 2009 18:05 UTC (Wed) by Baylink (subscriber, #755) [Link]
PDF is indeed a terrible e-book format... except for all the *manuals* already available in it.
My Nokia n800 is an even worse reader for those PDFs, but when you really *have* to read them, it will do... and it fits in a belt holster.
The grumpy editor's e-book reader Posted Jul 22, 2009 17:41 UTC (Wed) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
people have also hacked the kindle, the savory install that was mentioned is one of the available hacks. there is also one to tinker with the screensaver and one (for the kindle DX) to modify the browser
these install the hack binaries on the kindle, so the mechanism is known. one of the people working on this has said that he has been able to get a root shell on the device.
unfortunantly the people working on this are afraid that if they make their work too public, people will try to hack the kindle to use it as a computer internet connection, and in the process cost amazon enough money that amazon will cancel the free cell-based Internet access that the devices currently enjoy.
I suspect that this is not really a problem for a couple of reasons.
1. Internet access goes through a proxy at amazon, which limits (to some extent) what you can get to. However, I don't know if this is mandatory routing based on IP or just configured in the kindle browser
2. I suspect that the contract with sprint for the 'wispernet' service only allows the kindles to use otherwise idle bandwidth (in other words, it really doesn't cost sprint anything)
The grumpy editor's e-book reader Posted Jul 22, 2009 22:40 UTC (Wed) by ebs (guest, #30411) [Link]
It's blocked on IP level at Sprint, e.g. routing is set to only allow you to access Amazon servers
The grumpy editor's e-book reader Posted Jul 22, 2009 22:44 UTC (Wed) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
that makes a lot of sense, with that they have the option of having two-tier service.
the standard (limited) wispernet for free
unrestricted access for a fee
I know that for a reasonable fee (something less thhan I pay for an unlimited sprint card for my much faster laptop), I would be willing to pay for such a service, I would start off by loading a mail client on it (alpine in my case) for easy, remote access to my imap folders.
The grumpy editor's e-book reader Posted Jul 22, 2009 20:25 UTC (Wed) by cjb (guest, #40354) [Link]
> Is there any linux-based device with an e-ink display that allows users to install binaries?
I just ordered an iLiad Book Edition, which is exactly this. Looks like there's a healthy amount of free software available to install, including a full offline snapshot of English Wikipedia:
The grumpy editor's e-book reader Posted Jul 23, 2009 19:06 UTC (Thu) by dwayne (subscriber, #17004) [Link]
I own an iLiad for a year now and like it very much. It reads pdf out-of-the-box and after installing FBReader it even reads epub. If you buy the version with wlan you can just transfer data via a cifs-share to and from the device. Problem with the iLiad is the price and since there is now a next generation device available from iRex they pretty much abandoned the old devices. After all they released the sourcecode for the devicesoftware, so I expect some great things for those who can wait. Nonetheless I got interested in the txtr reader which is about to be released soon.
The grumpy editor's e-book reader Posted Jul 23, 2009 19:13 UTC (Thu) by dwayne (subscriber, #17004) [Link]
Just to clearify: Of course you can transfer data via a cifs-share to and from the device via the ethernet-port too.
But what really makes this thing shine is the wireless transfer.
The grumpy editor's e-book reader Posted Jul 22, 2009 20:26 UTC (Wed) by dottedmag (subscriber, #18590) [Link]
Hanlin v3 (sold under lot of different names: http://openinkpot.org/wiki/Hardware) and Hanvon N516 are supported by OpenInkpot, which is free software.
The grumpy editor's e-book reader Posted Jul 22, 2009 20:33 UTC (Wed) by Hanno (guest, #41730) [Link]
Thanks everybody. I wrote my comment while pheldens was already commenting about OpenInkpot in another thread here.
This is great news to me. It's wonderful to know that there is a free firmware for e-ink readers. The whole e-book thing just became even more interesting.
The grumpy editor's e-book reader Posted Jul 22, 2009 21:49 UTC (Wed) by JoeF (guest, #4486) [Link]
Ditto here.
I had been thinking about getting the Kindle, but with the recent killswitch episode, I don't want to go that way anymore. Great to learn that there are alternatives.
The grumpy editor's e-book reader Posted Jul 23, 2009 6:51 UTC (Thu) by dvandyk (subscriber, #49727) [Link]
> Is there any linux-based device with an e-ink display that allows users to install binaries?
There will be this Fall. Have a look at the Txtr Reader (and the acompanying "Web 2.0" portal for eBook sharing). The reader will run under Linux and have an SDK for interested parties to add new functions to it:
The grumpy editor's e-book reader Posted Jul 23, 2009 7:32 UTC (Thu) by Hanno (guest, #41730) [Link]
"interested party" = the average user?
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