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ReMarkable tablet open source tools and hacks

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Re: ReMarkable tablet open source tools and hacks

#211

Post by BoorishBears »

justinclift wrote: post #185
BoorishBears wrote: post #85

I preordered a ReMarkable 2 and after the very long wait started to question if it actually made sense... I ordered an iPad mini and a 20 dollar Apple Pencil clone (which imo is better than the actual Apple Pencil with its USB C charge port) That combined with a matte screen protector got me everything I wanted out of the Remarkable, without the wait, and with an incredibly fast computing device that can do far more.…

> ... these numbers are lightyears ahead of the early days where a day of standby was pretty good. That doesn't seem right. I still use my original iPad (v1) for reading and note taking quite often, if not daily. That lasts for 6-8 hours of reading without needing a recharge. If I don't feel like reading for days/weeks there's no chance the battery has gone flat, as it lasts weeks (at least) in idle mode. Pretty sure…

The original iPad was never really in the running in the "tablet vs ereader" wars that I saw at 1.5 lbs.

Usually it was Android tablets that would drain in a day of sleep because of random services draining them to death.

(To put it into perspective, the iPad mini weighs less than the Remarkable 2)

Re: ReMarkable tablet open source tools and hacks

#213

Post by davisr »

pabs3 wrote: post #204
davisr wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of us hackers feel the same way. I'm the author of a paid-but-GPLv3+ program called RCU[1] that almost 400 people use because they don't want to, or legally can't, interface with a cloud. I never connect my tablet to the net except to get software updates. [1]: http://www.davisr.me/projects/rcu/

FYI: I noticed that https on your site times out but http works.

I don't have HTTPS on my site (I do when people download files, on files.davisr.me, but not on my www).

Re: ReMarkable tablet open source tools and hacks

#214

Post by davisr »

pkage wrote: post #177
davisr wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of us hackers feel the same way. I'm the author of a paid-but-GPLv3+ program called RCU[1] that almost 400 people use because they don't want to, or legally can't, interface with a cloud. I never connect my tablet to the net except to get software updates. [1]: http://www.davisr.me/projects/rcu/

In what situations would someone not legally be allowed to interface with a cloud? Something like GDPR, or a personal injunction? Just out of curiosity, I've not heard of such a restriction.

Doctors, lawyers, psychologists, teachers grading papers--lots of instances where people can't share their data with third parties.

Re: ReMarkable tablet open source tools and hacks

#215

Post by dnquark »

What really matters is not how "open" the device is, but the open-ness of its data format, which is where rM epically fails.

It doesn't matter if a gadget is hackable if it locks you into a proprietary file format and doesn't have good interoperability. Exporting PDFs just doesn't cut it; the point of keeping your notes digital is being able to (a) maintain them as living documents and (b) use them on hardware of your choice.

Buying an Android-based device like Onyx Note Air gives you an option to use apps like Xournal/Xournal++ (best-in-class for handwritten notes, but unfortunately still in alpha on the mobile), or Stylus Labs' Write. This means that your notes are available, in their original form, on virtually any platform, in an open format. This is way, way more important than being able to root or ssh your gadget du jour.

Re: ReMarkable tablet open source tools and hacks

#216

Post by pabs3 »

davisr wrote: post #213
pabs3 wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FYI: I noticed that https on your site times out but http works.

I don't have HTTPS on my site (I do when people download files, on files.davisr.me, but not on my www).

Ah. I see the issue, the HTTPS-Only mode of Firefox and the Encrypt-all-sites mode of HTTPS-Everywhere thinks that you do, because closed TCP ports on your server don't respond to TCP SYN requests at all, whereas normally servers indicate connection refused by sending a TCP RST packet. So anything trying to access HTTPS on your site will just time out.

Re: ReMarkable tablet open source tools and hacks

#217

Post by siraben »

dnquark wrote: post #215

What really matters is not how "open" the device is, but the open-ness of its data format, which is where rM epically fails. It doesn't matter if a gadget is hackable if it locks you into a proprietary file format and doesn't have good interoperability. Exporting PDFs just doesn't cut it; the point of keeping your notes digital is being able to (a) maintain them as living documents and (b) use them on hardware of you…

You might be interested in the reverse engineering efforts[0] for the proprietary file format and the C++ library[1].

[0] https://remarkablewiki.com/tech/filesystem#lines_file_format

[1] https://github.com/ax3l/lines-are-beautiful

Re: ReMarkable tablet open source tools and hacks

#218

Post by KajMagnus »

lovelyviking wrote: post #90
siraben wrote: post #14

Having used the reMarkable 1 tablet for over a year now, the hackability is so refreshing to have in a consumer device. The tablet runs Linux and you can SSH into with root access. The hacking community is quite active, one frequently asked question is how to get and run custom software on the device. There's the Entware[0] package repository for running ARMv7 software on the tablet. Recently a community maintained p…

I stumbled on some article describing that Remarkable calls home and sends some statistics. I've checked and indeed it does. My hacking attitude says it is absolutely unacceptable. The good news you can disable it, and I did. But for poople to be aware , this is what it does by default. Can't say I like that part of rM software. Unfortunately now I've looked for the article and can't find it. If you saw one, please d…

> absolutely unacceptable. The good news you can disable it

Sounds pretty acceptable to me actually

I like Syncthing's approach: In Syncthing, telemetry is enabled by default, so they get statistics and can improve their product. But there's also a prominent info banner about this, so everyone learns about it, and can opt out.

Re: ReMarkable tablet open source tools and hacks

#220

Post by davisr »

pabs3 wrote: post #216
davisr wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't have HTTPS on my site (I do when people download files, on files.davisr.me, but not on my www).

Ah. I see the issue, the HTTPS-Only mode of Firefox and the Encrypt-all-sites mode of HTTPS-Everywhere thinks that you do, because closed TCP ports on your server don't respond to TCP SYN requests at all, whereas normally servers indicate connection refused by sending a TCP RST packet. So anything trying to access HTTPS on your site will just time out.

Thank you for that tip. Yes, I was blocking all connections to 443 on my firewall but I didn't realize that clients like those had such long timeout periods. Those connections should now be explicitly refused.
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