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Comment by Waterfall | Hacker News Reader

How many Linux eink tablets or tablets with Linux are out there? I'm not being sarcastic I don't know of any other ones unless you count Android as linux and I don't even know if there are any aside from the pine tablet and I dont think it's out yet either.

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The non android Kindle tablets run Linux with x11 and a heavily configured awesomewm. Most of the GUI is just java apps. The kernel and bootloader are downloadable from amazon and it’s very easy to replace the amazon stuff with a complete desktop environment containing xterm, Firefox ESR, gcc etc.

Honestly even if they were more expensive the non android kindles are way better than most android tablets for anything except games.

Aren't they all locked down a bunch, or does this apply to say the latest Paperwhite?

They’re locked down but once they’re unlocked the OS is actually sane unlike android.

If you don't count Android, I'm not sure there are any? Most eink tablets have a user interface that is more similar to smartphones than computers. Thus, most people won't need to run GNU coreutils, Gnome, or other parts of an average Linux desktop. If you do count Android, there are several; my Onyx Boox for instance runs Android, and can thus use regular smartphone apps for e.g. file syncing.

There's the PineTab, but its still in limited production runs

https://store.pine64.org/?product=pinetab-10-1-linux-tablet

Doesn’t look like eInk. Description says “HD IPS capacitive touchscreen”.

Whoops, I thought it was asking for Linux tablets in general.

Hello fellow Onyx Boox user. I'm trying to edit PDFs with the ONYX Note application but, it's very limited. Have you found any hand writing applications that edit PDFs? I guess I'm asking what applications are you using daily on your BOOX.

Aren't all kobo devices linux?

Yes, I think they're all running some 2.6 version of the kernel. (or at least mine are.)

Poker books run Linux and koreader supports them, which I have used a lot on my old Kindle touch.

Onyx Boox

I own an Onyx Boox Max Pro 13 inches. I was happy with it, until the battery died completely after 14 months and the device started freezing continuously.

This is a bit concerning. I have a Max2 myself, and have been satisfied so far. But it cost a lot, and I don't use it that often, so I was hoping to get 5-6 years of use out of it for the device to be worth the investment... Did you get any free reparation or replacement?

I always try to jump into these threads when I hear Onyx Boox mentioned. They're a lousy company that does not respect the GPL and ships intentionally insecure software (ancient linux kernel with SELinux disabled for starters) that phones home to Chinese servers. The bootloader is locked, so putting pmOS is out of the question and their update files are intentionally obfuscated.

I explain it all in this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21041543

This received some attention in the re--it community last month--the company still does not care [0]. It's a tragedy because their hardware is good, otherwise and they can compete on that.

[0]: https://old.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/hl09g7/onyx_boox_chi...

Why do you say it phones home? How can I confirm that?

Anyway doesn't all that stuff apply to Samsung and Apple equally

Kobo

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