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Reviving a four year old reMarkable 2

oskrim.github.io

11–20 of 107 posts

Re: Reviving a four year old reMarkable 2

#12
Really sad the official lack of proper support for using it as a general purpose device for the ones that would like time because otherwise the hardware is really great.

I like mine very much except the limitation that I can't do too much with it.

Re: Reviving a four year old reMarkable 2

#13
This is pretty refreshing to read. "Its just linux", seems to ship with SSH/root terminal enabled (over USB at least, with a simple way to enable networked access), built in webserver, just uses systemd for service control, etc.

They even list it in the user guide https://remarkable.guide/guide/access/ssh.html along with an "developing software" guide https://remarkable.guide/devel/index.html.

Maybe other tablets are like that too, to be honest I'm too poor to swing the 700-1000$ for what I can cover with an paper note pad (with the bonus of being able to comfortably sit my coffee cup on it, use any pen or pencil, rip pages out, drop it, forget it somewhere, etc etc) to buy one but at least it seems like a product I would support.

Re: Reviving a four year old reMarkable 2

#14
post #10

Maybe this will restore my faith in digital tablets. I made notes, saved them. Only for the next morning to find my device out of battery and the notes missing. I don't get it, feels like I was zapped by some evil overlord that didn't want me recalling what I had written for the next part of my cartoon. Now just use good ole paper and pen.

The tablet stopped being able to update just from sitting unused for a few years. That really decreases my faith, at least in reMarkable.

Easy to end up like this. Takes a lot of work to preserve. I had an Arch Linux desktop. Put it in storage to move to a different country and came back in a year. Booted fine, couldn’t upgrade. No feasible resolution. Reimaged it after a couple of hours (this was pre AI so you had to manually figure things out).

Re: Reviving a four year old reMarkable 2

#15
post #10

Maybe this will restore my faith in digital tablets. I made notes, saved them. Only for the next morning to find my device out of battery and the notes missing. I don't get it, feels like I was zapped by some evil overlord that didn't want me recalling what I had written for the next part of my cartoon. Now just use good ole paper and pen.

The tablet stopped being able to update just from sitting unused for a few years. That really decreases my faith, at least in reMarkable.

I'm running my remarkable on some ancient software version, and honestly for my use case (reading textbooks and occasional note taking) the old version is perfectly fine.

I don't connect it to the internet, just use the awesome RCU software (paid, but distributed with source code) to move stuff between it and my computer. I presume if I were to try to update it, I'll find the same fate! About exporting, the notebook format is relatively simple, I wrote a very bare-bones software that's able to convert the notebooks to PDF in a few hundred lines of Nim, or you could just use the integrated web UI.

Re: Reviving a four year old reMarkable 2

#16
post #8

woah 4 years is considered obsolete? My kids still using thinkpad 430 from 2013

> woah 4 years is considered obsolete?

No, this device was only discontinued this year, you can still buy accessories and it still receives software updates.

It just turns out their software has flaws that break the update process after a few years of sitting unused. Not great, but luckily there are workarounds, as this article walks you through.

Re: Reviving a four year old reMarkable 2

#17

Really sad the official lack of proper support for using it as a general purpose device for the ones that would like time because otherwise the hardware is really great. I like mine very much except the limitation that I can't do too much with it.

What exactly is a "general purpose device"? An eInk tablet is pretty far away from being "general purpose" as far as I can tell. Should I buy a Ford Ranger and demand that the company makes it easy to convert it to a lawn mover?

Re: Reviving a four year old reMarkable 2

#18

Why not use paper and pencil?

i’ll address this as if it was a genuine question.

my handwriting is awful, not to mention that my physical notebook management is awful. i’ve considered a supernote nomad as a way to streamline some of those issues. theyre just so expensive that i cant really justify a $500 experiment.

Re: Reviving a four year old reMarkable 2

#19

This is pretty refreshing to read. "Its just linux", seems to ship with SSH/root terminal enabled (over USB at least, with a simple way to enable networked access), built in webserver, just uses systemd for service control, etc. They even list it in the user guide https://remarkable.guide/guide/access/ssh.html along with an "developing software" guide https://remarkable.guide/devel/index.html . Maybe other tablets ar…

I have a Kobo that was kept unused in a similar state for a few years until I decide to build an SDK platform to develop and deploy apps on it. My Kobo does not support apps on its Linux platform.

I have been using it to read HN, as an RSS reader over my news and blog sources, generate audiobooks on topics I want to understand with ElevenLabs, Exa and OpenAI and listen via connecting its bluetooth to my speakers and even as a remote Claude Code & Codex approval sidekick.

It is amazing that a $100 device with a single core and 512mb RAM can do so much and run for so long.

Here is the open-sourced platform https://github.com/BandarLabs/Cobalt

Re: Reviving a four year old reMarkable 2

#20

This is pretty refreshing to read. "Its just linux", seems to ship with SSH/root terminal enabled (over USB at least, with a simple way to enable networked access), built in webserver, just uses systemd for service control, etc. They even list it in the user guide https://remarkable.guide/guide/access/ssh.html along with an "developing software" guide https://remarkable.guide/devel/index.html . Maybe other tablets ar…

"They" is not reMarkable AS. remarkable.guide is a community project.
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