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Kobo AuraHD
45812 visit from 2013.12.25.

auraHD Android

The image fom Marek for Glo Kobo_Glo.7z is not working on Aura HD, but we can use all the partition's content from that image. To produce a working image, I choose the method retaining all the original content from the auraHD SDCard, - so the u-boot,the serial#,the HW_CONFIG part and waveforms info - except the kernel which must modify and compile. The kernel can be download from naberius.de: kernel.tar.gz. It contains all the necessary setting for the E-ink display, the only misbehaved part is the IR-touch - the coordinates must swap and scale both for x-y and left-right. The patch I made you can find here: auraHD.diff. It is not complete - after the screen rotate there is a problem again - must finalize the code. Also must change some settings in the /system partitions (keymap,etc.): system.diff. The corrected vold.fstab seems to be good (the ....mmc2 path exists in /sys), but the SDCard does not mounted by vold, so I mounted it in init. To avoid the LED blink, I wrote a small script to switch it off in init.
To produce the working Android image you need to

  • extract all the original SD card content ( the script doing that in linux: extract.sh)
  • Extract the parts from the Glo tolino image: gloextract.sh
  • Extract the partition contents from the Glo image
  • Delete all partitions from the Glo image
  • Partition it as 1st:ext4, 256M 2nd:ext4,1.5G 3rd:vfat, all remaining space
  • Compile the new kernel: aurakernel
  • Copy back all the original content to the beginning of the flash + the newly compiled kernel collect.sh
  • Copy all the three Glo partition content back to the image
  • Modify the /system partition content
In the case you dont want to do the above process, here is my 4G SD image: aura_4G.7z.
Now if you flash the produced image and put this SD inside the Kobo (inside, so not to the external slot!), it started - you can see the boot animation, etc. - Android is working, you have Wifi connection, Back button (the old Light one) and Sleep/Poweroff button. The tolino ereader app don't work, therefore no USB now.
And the final words: it seems that - as with the Nook - the Android is not a good operating system for this type of devices without a very high level of customizations. Until you can work with the corrected (for ex. Settings) application everything is fine - crystal clear b/w screens everywhere - but any other program use color buttons, animations,etc. which is designed for color screens and the look is ugly in this device. Maybe the e-ink refresh also have some trouble because a notifiable shadow remain on the screen.
Because this device main purpose is reading an e-book ( and the original reader app is excellent), I decided to not use Android in this present stage. In the case somebody modify the u-boot booting from the external SD when the ligth button pressed, it can be useful....

This is the content of my auraHD HW_CONFIG flash section dumped by the kernel: 

 CPU  :  2 mx50 /  2 1G
 PCB  : 1c E606C0
 Disp.:  6 MX508+TPS65185 /  a 6.8" Bottom EPD
 Resol:  3 1440x1080 /  3 16Bits_mirror
 Touch:  8 neonode_v2 /  4 IR-Type
 Light:  6 TABLE3+ /  0 SY7201
 Flags:  0 BootON
 Key  :  b FL_Key
 Codec:  0 No
 Audio:  0 No
 Wifi :  7 WC121A2
 BT   :  0 No
 Mobil:  0 No
 Sens.:  2 G Sensor
 uP   :  0 MSP430
 Cust.:  9 9
 Batt.:  1 1500mA
 LED  :  0 TYPE1
 RAM  :  3 512MB
 FLASH:  0 Micro SD
 ExtSD:  2 Micro SD
 FStyp:  2 Ext4
 Part.:  2 TYPE3
 UI   :  0 Ebrmain
 Halls:  1 TLE4913
Interesting is the G sensor .....

auraHD hardware


The Kobo AuraHD backside
The components: There are a separate serial port for each microcontroller, J5 is the serial (3.3V) console for the Bootloader/Linux.

The boot process (original 3.1.0 image:

U-Boot 2009.08-dirty-svn ( 3月 01 2013 - 11:22:42)

CPU:   Freescale i.MX50 family 1.1V at 800 MHz
mx50 pll1: 800MHz
mx50 pll2: 400MHz
mx50 pll3: 216MHz
ipg clock     : 66666666Hz
ipg per clock : 66666666Hz
uart clock    : 24000000Hz
ahb clock     : 133333333Hz
axi_a clock   : 400000000Hz
axi_b clock   : 200000000Hz
weim_clock    : 100000000Hz
ddr clock     : 200000000Hz
esdhc1 clock  : 80000000Hz
esdhc2 clock  : 80000000Hz
esdhc3 clock  : 80000000Hz
esdhc4 clock  : 80000000Hz
Board: MX50 RDP board
Boot Reason: [POR]
Boot Device: SD
I2C:   ready
DRAM:  512 MB
MMC:   FSL_ESDHC: 0, FSL_ESDHC: 1, FSL_ESDHC: 2
In:    serial
Out:   serial
Err:   serial
[_get_sd_number] g_sd_number:2

MMC read: dev # 2, block # 1023, count 1 partition # 0 ... 
1 blocks read: OK

MMC read: dev # 2, block # 1024, count 1 partition # 0 ... 
1 blocks read: OK
ram p=70000000,size=536870912

MMC read: dev # 2, block # 18431, count 1 partition # 0 ... 
1 blocks read: OK
no "logo" bin header

MMC read: dev # 2, block # 14335, count 1 partition # 0 ... 
1 blocks read: OK

MMC read: dev # 2, block # 14336, count 2229 partition # 0 ... 
2229 blocks read: OK
Kernel RAM visiable size=510M->510M
init TPS65185 power ...
Relock PLL1 to 1GHz ...
mx50 pll1: 1000MHz
mx50 pll2: 400MHz
mx50 pll3: 216MHz
ipg clock     : 66666666Hz
ipg per clock : 66666666Hz
uart clock    : 24000000Hz
ahb clock     : 133333333Hz
axi_a clock   : 400000000Hz
axi_b clock   : 200000000Hz
weim_clock    : 100000000Hz
ddr clock     : 200000000Hz
esdhc1 clock  : 80000000Hz
esdhc2 clock  : 80000000Hz
esdhc3 clock  : 80000000Hz
esdhc4 clock  : 80000000Hz
Hit any key to stop autoboot:  0 

MMC read: dev # 2, block # 2047, count 1 partition # 0 ... 
1 blocks read: OK
no kernel image signature !

MMC read: dev # 2, block # 2048, count 8192 partition # 0 ... 
8192 blocks read: OK
## Booting kernel from Legacy Image at 70800000 ...
   Image Name:   r6512_#1038 Apr 25 15:48:22
   Created:      2013-04-25   7:48:26 UTC
   Image Type:   ARM Linux Kernel Image (uncompressed)
   Data Size:    1934756 Bytes =  1.8 MB
   Load Address: 70008000
   Entry Point:  70008000
   Loading Kernel Image ... OK
OK

Starting kernel ...

Uncompressing Linux... done, booting the kernel.
[zForce_ir_touch_recv_data-206] command BootComplete (0)...
1+0 records in
1+0 records out
512 bytes (512B) copied, 0.000258 seconds, 1.9MB/s
cannot open /dev/null
dosfsck 3.0.6, 04 Oct 2009, FAT32, LFN
There are differences between boot sector and its backup.
Differences: (offset:original/backup)
  489:1b/00, 490:df/00, 491:05/00, 492:a5/00, 493:01/00, 494:04/00, 495:a8/00
  , 496:c1/00, 497:8e/00, 498:4a/00, 499:48/00, 500:34/00, 501:6c/00
  , 502:53/00, 503:e0/00, 504:91/00, 505:ff/00, 506:52/00, 507:35/00
  , 508:0d/00, 509:d8/00
  Not automatically fixing this.
[PROGRESS_BAR-2916] No progess ...
/dev/mmcblk0p3: 3137 files, 138099/832932 clusters

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Questions, Suggestions: Pálóczi-Horváth János< phj@phj.hu>