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I bricked then recovered my reMarkable 2

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Re: I bricked then recovered my reMarkable 2

#221

Post by rowanG077 »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #220
rowanG077 wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think so. The entire point of remarkable is to interact with the text. That is also How I have seen people use them at Uni. It's more like 99% of notes are tightly coupled to the text.

> The entire point of remarkable is to interact with the text. You might be surprised. I just ordered one, and for me the point is to read scanned PDFs of large books.

I don't see why you would buy a reMarkable for that. There are e-readers that can do that that are both much cheaper and more fully featured.

Re: I bricked then recovered my reMarkable 2

#222

Post by tjoff »

Eeems wrote: post #120
tjoff wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We made sure that the toltec install process includes a hash of the install script to prove that it isn't modified by a man-in-the-middle. A bit late for that, no? Maybe I misunderstood but the modified version could do it's thing and then download the official script to fool that check. Or pretty much anything else imaginable.

I guess you haven't looked at our install instructions[0]. The hash check is done before running the script. You can't run the script if it doesn't match unless you choose to just run it manually and ignore the check. 0. https://toltec-dev.org/

I have not. Just responding to the information that was available in this thread.

But that is better!

Re: I bricked then recovered my reMarkable 2

#223

Post by tjoff »

kayodelycaon wrote: post #183
tjoff wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We made sure that the toltec install process includes a hash of the install script to prove that it isn't modified by a man-in-the-middle. A bit late for that, no? Maybe I misunderstood but the modified version could do it's thing and then download the official script to fool that check. Or pretty much anything else imaginable.

The bash script is fairly easy to download and verify before running it. It’s only 200 lines with a few functions and if statements.

Yes, but the whole antipattern of wget | bash is that you don't encourage that sort of scrutiny.

Re: I bricked then recovered my reMarkable 2

#224

Post by sharikone »

kayodelycaon wrote: post #91
morpheuskafka wrote: post #10

I work part-time for my university's help desk and I was both impressed and disappointed the first time I came across one of these--one the one hand, its highly customizable and supports SSH access. On the other hand, there is shockingly no way to get the MAC address without connecting via SSH, even though this is popular among academics who often need to get onto MAC filtered networks. In hindsight, we probably coul…

The reMarkable is surprisingly good for its primary purpose. Everything else it does... is limited. They things they did do are done well given how they are implemented. The epub/pdf experience sucks because it doesn't have a real pdf reader. It just renders the epub to pdf and then throw the pdf into the note-taking app. Arguably, none of the functionality is half-assed. It works very well as a writing tablet. It ab…

In defense of the Remarkable its primary purpose is a very useful use-case. No iPad or Android tablet could get me to ditch paper and notebooks altogether. The Remarkable did it.

And since it is hackable the community made interesting strides in other use cases as well

Re: I bricked then recovered my reMarkable 2

#225

Post by rchaud »

kayodelycaon wrote: post #91
morpheuskafka wrote: post #10

I work part-time for my university's help desk and I was both impressed and disappointed the first time I came across one of these--one the one hand, its highly customizable and supports SSH access. On the other hand, there is shockingly no way to get the MAC address without connecting via SSH, even though this is popular among academics who often need to get onto MAC filtered networks. In hindsight, we probably coul…

The reMarkable is surprisingly good for its primary purpose. Everything else it does... is limited. They things they did do are done well given how they are implemented. The epub/pdf experience sucks because it doesn't have a real pdf reader. It just renders the epub to pdf and then throw the pdf into the note-taking app. Arguably, none of the functionality is half-assed. It works very well as a writing tablet. It ab…

> There isn't a good general purpose eInk tablet

I have a Boox Note Air that's fantastic and about the same price as the RM2 after import taxes. The built in Epub reader is far better than most off the shelf apps, because it supports E-ink centric features such as "embolden text" and "darken image" that are especially helpful when reading colour PDFs.

Note taking quality is more than good enough for me with the stock pen, although there are fancier options available. Best of all, you can split screen between the note app and the reading app, so you can take notes as you read.

Re: I bricked then recovered my reMarkable 2

#226

Post by Eeems »

greenhathacker wrote: post #107
Eeems wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know I reacted hard to this statement: > Going further down the rabbit hole, the toltec GitHub page mentions that it works on top of the Entware distribution, and recommends what is basically “wget | bash”. I’m not a fan of this. Could I install my own rsync? We made sure that the toltec install process includes a hash of the install script to prove that it isn't modified by a man-in-the-middle. Toltec itself requi…

I made the mistake in that post of not mentioning that I didn't want to be required to connect the rm2 to wifi, and installing a package manager would mean I would need to do that to install software. If anything it would be something I would temporarily install, use it to install rsync, then figure out how to uninstall it, and in my mind that's functionally equivalent to what I was doing with docker. Pushing to / in…

That makes a lot more sense. you can always just install initially and then use opkg to install local packages you scp across in the future as well: `opkg install path/to/package.ipk`

another option would be to just grab the files from the package itself and extract them to the device, and then manually run the install script steps as required. They are basically just gz tarballs.

Re: I bricked then recovered my reMarkable 2

#227

Post by fierro »

n0cturne wrote: post #12
cortesoft wrote: post #6

Isn't `bricked then recovered` a contradiction in terms?

Generally I'd say yes, but when recovery includes a breadboard and soldering I think 'bricked then recovered' is acceptable!

I'd agree -- philosophically I'm not sure it's possible to truly brick hardware unless you've physically disturbed the hardware's integrity, via physical trauma.

Re: I bricked then recovered my reMarkable 2

#228

Post by VonBlue »

Andrex wrote: post #4

Not trying to shill too hard, but it's rare I fall in love with a device the way I've fallen in love with my Remarkable 2. I can't say it was 100% worth the price (half was paid as a gift), but everything about it is refreshingly elegant and simple. Great to know recovering from a brick is possible too.

Same here! I am generally not interested in shiny new tech. After I had the experience of a v1 TomTom runner watch, I decided I don’t want a v1 of anything anymore. Also new tech makes me too worried about breaking it or losing it or having it stolen. But the reMarkable 2…. I could not resist! I did the waiting list and was genuinely excited about it and use it every day. My partner also loves his, though he is very much a shiny tech person.

Re: I bricked then recovered my reMarkable 2

#229

Post by Eeems »

Eeems wrote: post #226
greenhathacker wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I made the mistake in that post of not mentioning that I didn't want to be required to connect the rm2 to wifi, and installing a package manager would mean I would need to do that to install software. If anything it would be something I would temporarily install, use it to install rsync, then figure out how to uninstall it, and in my mind that's functionally equivalent to what I was doing with docker. Pushing to / in…

That makes a lot more sense. you can always just install initially and then use opkg to install local packages you scp across in the future as well: `opkg install path/to/package.ipk` another option would be to just grab the files from the package itself and extract them to the device, and then manually run the install script steps as required. They are basically just gz tarballs.

For anybody wanting more context on the ipk format: https://github.com/toltec-dev/toltec/blob/stable/docs/opkg.m...

Re: I bricked then recovered my reMarkable 2

#230

Post by svat »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #191
svat wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But I'm taking "notes" to mean commentary. In the context of the reMarkable / this conversation, “notes” means whatever the user draws on the device with the stylus: underlining or circling or crossing-out words or drawing lines between them, drawing pictures or hand-writing in the margin or between lines or on the words, etc: whatever you would or could do with a physical book and a pen/pencil. (A primary design g…

It's a small subset of possible notes, but it's a very large subset of notes that are likely to come into existence.

I guess the affordances of the device influence what notes/annotations are likely to come into existence. On the Kindle, where IIRC input is through a keyboard (apart from highlighting), textual notes would be more common. On printed books and on the reMarkable (I'm even more "trigger-happy" on a reMarkable than on paper, probably because of undo and perfect erasing), annotation tends to be more free-form and varied, with more marks, scribbles, arrows etc, and a bit less text. Some of these annotations could also be understood and associated with corresponding text in principle, but it's not trivial. (Some examples of annotations from printed books: https://entropymag.org/writers-their-margin-notes/ )
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