Hi all,
So in the last few days I made a big leap forward in my Kobo hacking and connected mines to my Rasberry Pi's serial port. Now I could mod the device as I wanted, installing a new OS if I wanted, and have full control over it. So far I've successfully installed some Linux distros in there, such as Alpine Linux 3.13, Debian 6/7/8.
However, to make them run, I had to recompile the kernel because some crucial features weren't there (e.g. cgroups for Debian 8 w/ systemd). I spent some time in the menuconfig and found some interesting options that I enabled. Now, I know that compiling kernels isn't an easy thing for some people here, and I think that everyone deserves to enjoy a better kernel with better features.
So here I am, with the Modded Kernels Thread!
Here you'll find a better kernel for (hopefully [WIP]) all Kobo devices, which will have the following additionnal features:
- SquashFS 4.0 support (compressed read-only mountable filesystem, like a tar.xz archive but you can mount it and therefore not extract it, so it takes up less space)
- NFS server/client support so you can enjoy sharing network filesystems!
- FUSE support + character device support
- kexec syscall support permits you to run other kernels without flashing them to the eMMC/MMC. Needs more testing on Kobos.
- Experimental sound card support (some devices only) added ALSA support, but something has to be developed/added to the device, it won't work right away since the Kobos don't have a sound output device (at least for now)
- Btrfs, ext2/3/4 support
- probably some others...
Note: USB-OTG isn't there yet because I didn't figure out how to compile it. Will probably be done later this week.
Currently supported devices:
Kobo Glo HD, Mini support coming soon
The main downloads are hosted in KoBox's Gitea, just there. You should follow thoroughly the instructions to be sure not to brick your Kobo and pick only the kernel that was compiled for your Kobo model.
Disclaimer: I am not responsible, nor any Kobo developers, of any damage done to your device due to flashing custom kernels. Use at your own risk. You have been warned.
You might encounter Wi-Fi issues, so please report them and if you know what's causing them, please post a way to fix them.
Enjoy :)
So in the last few days I made a big leap forward in my Kobo hacking and connected mines to my Rasberry Pi's serial port. Now I could mod the device as I wanted, installing a new OS if I wanted, and have full control over it. So far I've successfully installed some Linux distros in there, such as Alpine Linux 3.13, Debian 6/7/8.
However, to make them run, I had to recompile the kernel because some crucial features weren't there (e.g. cgroups for Debian 8 w/ systemd). I spent some time in the menuconfig and found some interesting options that I enabled. Now, I know that compiling kernels isn't an easy thing for some people here, and I think that everyone deserves to enjoy a better kernel with better features.
So here I am, with the Modded Kernels Thread!
Here you'll find a better kernel for (hopefully [WIP]) all Kobo devices, which will have the following additionnal features:
- SquashFS 4.0 support (compressed read-only mountable filesystem, like a tar.xz archive but you can mount it and therefore not extract it, so it takes up less space)
- NFS server/client support so you can enjoy sharing network filesystems!
- FUSE support + character device support
- kexec syscall support permits you to run other kernels without flashing them to the eMMC/MMC. Needs more testing on Kobos.
- Experimental sound card support (some devices only) added ALSA support, but something has to be developed/added to the device, it won't work right away since the Kobos don't have a sound output device (at least for now)
- Btrfs, ext2/3/4 support
- probably some others...
Note: USB-OTG isn't there yet because I didn't figure out how to compile it. Will probably be done later this week.
Currently supported devices:
Kobo Glo HD, Mini support coming soon
The main downloads are hosted in KoBox's Gitea, just there. You should follow thoroughly the instructions to be sure not to brick your Kobo and pick only the kernel that was compiled for your Kobo model.
Disclaimer: I am not responsible, nor any Kobo developers, of any damage done to your device due to flashing custom kernels. Use at your own risk. You have been warned.
You might encounter Wi-Fi issues, so please report them and if you know what's causing them, please post a way to fix them.
Enjoy :)