[HN Gopher] I bricked then recovered my reMarkable 2
___________________________________________________________________
I bricked then recovered my reMarkable 2
Author : greenhathacker
Score : 264 points
Date : 2021-09-27 15:20 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (operand.ca)
(TXT) w3m dump (operand.ca)
| ericcholis wrote:
| I had a very similar problem, although the root cause was a
| drained battery. After finally charging it, the device was stuck
| in a boot loop.
|
| I wasn't able to create a proper connection via the pogo; but the
| community was amazingly helpful (and appropriately critical of my
| poor soldering skills).
|
| Since the device hadn't synchronized to the cloud in some time, I
| had to send it out for data recovery. The cost was worth it for
| me. Happily, the data was fully recoverable and I was able to
| simply get a drive image and work with it locally using a mix of
| traditional OS tools as well as tools provided by the Remarkable
| community.
| selykg wrote:
| So, I guess I'll give my (sadly) negative experience with these
| things.
|
| First, I sort of ordered it on a whim. I liked the idea and
| thought it'd be cool to use for work while not having to use my
| personal iPad even more.
|
| This is their decision, but they ship with DHL, which is
| absolutely godawful in literally every experience I've had with
| them. I learned after ordering that the device doesn't allow
| searching within your handwritten notes, a feature I use
| regularly in GoodNotes on my iPad.
|
| So, I looked at how to return the device before I even got it.
| Their support said to just tell DHL to return to shipper. I
| called DHL they said "sure, we'll do that" for the next two days
| I kept getting text messages from DHL saying they hadn't managed
| to ship it back yet, they'd update me the next day.
|
| Then the device shows up at my doorstep and DHL skipped requiring
| a signature and just dropped it on the porch. Great.
|
| So I email support back and get the process to fully return from
| them started.
|
| They send me to a "returns" website that doesn't see my order.
| Great. Email them back and ask for how to workaround this.
|
| The next email they send me a second returns site.. they have two
| apparently. Then this time their instructions are about returning
| for a replacement device. Email back after that and clarify, I am
| not returning for another device, I am returning and getting a
| refund. They said oh sure, our mistake.
|
| Their returns site (2nd site) was about as unclear as can be. In
| fact their instructions in their email were, yet again, for
| returning for a replacement device, the site said to print 3
| copies of one sheet, another one copy of the label to attach to
| the box. I did so, finally got DHL scheduled to pick it up.
|
| DHL says "nope, we need a different sheet of paper" which was not
| provided to me until I went searching for it in the returns site.
| At this point DHL is gone with the box.
|
| I write some feedback to Remarkable about their incredibly
| terrible instructions and they just keep apologizing but
| referencing my replacement device despite repeating 5 times at
| this point that I'm returning for a refund.
|
| DHL has had the package for over 10 days now and it's not moving.
| My luck, Remarkable is going to get the stupid thing at some
| point and then ship me a replacement device instead of refunding
| me and I'll have to do this stupid insanity all over again.
|
| The device itself seems fine, I opened and used it while I was
| waiting for Remarkable to figure their shit out on my return as
| each email takes over a day to receive a response. So I have
| about a week of waiting to return this thing just in waiting for
| them to send me appropriate return instructions. Another 10 days
| of screwing around with DHL and no movement of the product.
|
| I would really recommend NOT getting one of these devices unless
| you are 100% sure you're going to keep it. If you have any
| inkling of an idea that you may utilize the return process, just
| don't, it's not worth it.
|
| This has been the single WORST customer support experience I've
| ever had at this point. Their support people simply regurgitate
| snippets, and sadly they can't even use the correct snippets, and
| for that they take over 24 hours to get back to you with those
| incorrect instructions.
|
| Run, just run away.
| chews wrote:
| now now, it's a kinda obvious screwup, but with big footguns like
| this there should be an easier way to re-flash the thing
| though... it really should have a shadow-copy of a partition that
| can restore it to factory. It wouldn't be to hard to implement.
|
| it's just lovely to seen an open device... this made me want to
| buy one.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| Oh boy do I have opinions with this one. This seems like a lot of
| work to avoid using a perfectly good package manager _on the
| device_.
|
| They could have used rsync without installing rsync on the
| device. The target device doesn't need to have rsync for rsync to
| be used.
|
| They could have installed the package manager and left it. It
| doesn't run anything in the background on my device. It's easy
| enough to verify you don't have a systemd service or timer
| running it. (cron isn't installed, iirc)
|
| They could have compiled rsync with all of the libraries bundled
| with it. (Maybe this is beyond their expertise?)
|
| Their solution is using Docker to use the package manager and
| then _overwriting system files_ on the device in the worse
| possible way, without understanding what they are doing. At that
| point, they verified in Docker. Should be safe to run it on the
| tablet then, yes?
|
| What attack vector are they worried about? :/ Toltec is actively
| worked on, odds are someone would notice someone else fucking
| with repository.
|
| The cherry on top was completely not understanding how the
| remarkable works. There are two partitions for a reason. The
| inactive one is used for software updates. When the reMarkable
| downloads an update, it downloads it to the inactive partition.
| When you "install" the update, it flips which of the two
| partitions is active. If the update fails to boot, it flips back
| to the known good state. All they had to do was switch the active
| partition, the next update would overwrite the broken partition.
| https://github.com/ddvk/remarkable2-recovery/issues/6
|
| This looks like a bad case of tunnel vision, combined with a lack
| of understanding. I'm glad they managed to figure out how to fix
| it.
| Eeems wrote:
| 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 requires the use of SSL to connect
| after the fact, which lowers the risk after it's been
| installed. We are also exploring the implications of adding
| package signing[0].
|
| 0. https://github.com/toltec-dev/build/issues/14
| tjoff wrote:
| _> 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.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| 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.
| Eeems wrote:
| 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/
| greenhathacker wrote:
| 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 / instead of /opt was my mistake :)
|
| I apologize, I could have better expressed why I took the
| path I did. I'll edit the post later today.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| Ah! Now that approach makes a lot more sense. Any
| particular reason to avoid putting it on a WiFi network for
| a few minutes?
| throwaway09223 wrote:
| "They could have used rsync without installing rsync on the
| device. The target device doesn't need to have rsync for rsync
| to be used."
|
| This is not true.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| It very much is true. I do it all the time. If the target
| device is running ssh, you can use rsync on the source.
|
| https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-
| copy...
|
| Edit: Looks like I was wrong.
| xdfgh1112 wrote:
| Doesn't that run rsync --server on the server via ssh?
| throwaway09223 wrote:
| yup.
| throwaway09223 wrote:
| No, it is not true. You're misunderstanding how this works.
|
| The document you link is using ssh as a transport protocol
| as opposed to the rsync protocol. The rsync binary must be
| installed on both systems for this to work.
|
| When you run something like:
|
| rsync file user@rhost:/dest/path
|
| The local rsync binary invokes ssh, and then executes the
| rsync binary on the remote system and from there the two
| instances of rsync effectuate the transfer.
|
| If you do not have rsync available in your path on the
| remote system you will not be able to copy files over ssh.
| This is documented in the manpage.
|
| Try it.
| _hyn3 wrote:
| Exactly. You absolutely must have the rsync binary
| installed locally. The rsync "server" should only
| actually be run if you know you need it (that is, only if
| you are providing rsync services to other people).
| tnhh wrote:
| As others have pointed out, that doesn't quite work. But
| the way that I use rsync with my remarkable is to use sshfs
| to mount the remarkable's filesystem, and then run rsync
| between the local and mounted filesystems. Works for me
| without having to install rsync on the remarkable.
| danachow wrote:
| Unfortunately you will not get any speed boost in that
| case, in fact it will be slower having to fetch all the
| remote side data for small file changes.
| _e wrote:
| Does remarkable use a fork of ChromiumOS? ChromiumOS uses the
| BOOT-A and BOOT-B partitions for upgrades and it reverts to the
| previously used boot partition if the OS fails to successfully
| boot[0].
|
| [0] https://www.chromium.org/chromium-os/chromiumos-design-
| docs/...
| Evidlo wrote:
| No, it uses Yocto/OpenEmbedded.
| _e wrote:
| Thank you for the fast response and, also, for putting this
| onto my radar. For anyone else who is curious,
| Yocto/OpenEmbedded is used to create custom linux
| distributions for embedded devices:
|
| https://www.yoctoproject.org/members/openembedded/
|
| https://www.yoctoproject.org/software-overview/
| a-dub wrote:
| using two partitions in this way on embedded devices has been
| a trope for a very long time. service/warranty calls are
| expensive!
|
| usually there are three. system a and system b which are
| updated and flipped and some sort of emergency recovery that
| either has a factory image or a very light rom that phones
| home for a new image.
| TechBro8615 wrote:
| It sounds like Blue/Green deployments.
| a-dub wrote:
| sorta. but i think that blue/green deployments are
| typically monitored by some central control that will
| halt and reverse a whole fleet deployment, where
| typically embedded devices run that state machine
| locally. (after flashing the unused partition, if it
| fails to boot, fail back to the old one and disable the
| update).
| _e wrote:
| For the curious... An overview of the Blue/Green
| deployment model:
|
| https://www.redhat.com/en/topics/devops/what-is-blue-
| green-d...
| [deleted]
| morpheuskafka wrote:
| 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 could have connected it to the guest
| network, gotten its IP and then had the networking group look up
| its MAC on their logs. What we wound up doing is telling the user
| to go home and check their own router for the MAC, which is
| obviously less than ideal service.
| formerly_proven wrote:
| I was under the impression that having the MAC address on the
| device's label was some kind of regulatory requirement for Wifi
| - I have never seen a wireless device without it.
| trangus_1985 wrote:
| It is a requirement, although you can now use "e-labels".
| Such as, a page in the settings that has the FCC information.
| (IANAL)
| judge2020 wrote:
| I think that's for APs, given pretty much no smartphone has
| its MAC printed on it.
| [deleted]
| formerly_proven wrote:
| Oh, true! I thought it was the MAC address in tiny print on
| iPhones but it's actually the FCC ID and IMEI. On the other
| hand, all smartphones have the MAC and serial number easily
| accessible in their settings menu.
| bbarnett wrote:
| Many phones let you rotate your MAC too, to prevent
| profiling...
| jaywalk wrote:
| You must not have seen an iPhone in quite a while. There
| is absolutely nothing printed on iPhones these days, all
| of the regulatory stuff is under the Settings menu.
| cookingmyserver wrote:
| Depends on the country. Although they have been hiding it
| pretty well, and usually it is only symbols and not
| detailed information like IDs.
| djrogers wrote:
| > I thought it was the MAC address in tiny print on
| iPhones but it's actually the FCC ID and IMEI.
|
| iPhones haven't been doing that for years - they have no
| markings other than the apple logo on the back.
| NieDzejkob wrote:
| Where does your phone have this sticker?
| drfuchs wrote:
| In the battery compartment.
| judge2020 wrote:
| No, or at lease, not on iPhone: https://guide-
| images.cdn.ifixit.com/igi/QAtX1WnxfYrMhOZg.hug... (13 on
| the left, 12 on the right; via iFixit)
| gh02t wrote:
| I have a Hololens 2 on my desk that is the same way, you have
| to log in and sign in with a Microsoft account to access the
| MAC. Getting it onto my corporate network was a massive pain.
| Worse, to log in with our directory service we need to be on
| the corporate network that is MAC blocked so I ended up having
| to make a throwaway MS account and tethering it with my phone.
| Prior to this I didn't even realize you could omit the address,
| for some reason I thought it was a requirement to have the MAC
| address printed somewhere on the device/packaging.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| 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 absolutely sucks as a general
| purpose device because everything except the very core
| experience is flat-out missing.
|
| There isn't a good general purpose eInk tablet and the
| reMarkable is the closest thing we have. :(
| NoGravitas wrote:
| Maybe keep an eye out on the PineNote. It's bound to be much
| worse than the reMarkable as a writing tablet, but it should
| also be general purpose in a lot of ways the rm isn't.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| Don't have the skills to hack on one myself but I can't
| wait to see what people do with it. :)
| zhdc1 wrote:
| The Onyx Boox series is really good. The writing experience
| is almost as good as a Remarkable. The reading experience is
| excellent, and it's runs Android.
| mariusor wrote:
| > and it's runs Android
|
| I apologize for the snark, but I refuse to see how this is
| a plus over "it runs vanilla linux".
| salamandersauce wrote:
| There's no vanilla linux version of Libby, Kindle app,
| Kobo, Marvel Unlimited, Pressreader etc. At best you can
| maybe use a web browser for those which is a sub-par
| experience. For reading content Android is IMO better
| because there is general an app for DRM'd content. Linux
| doesn't have that and not all content can be made DRM
| free.
| scotu wrote:
| I would also add that last I heard Onyx was probably
| violating the GPL if that is a decision factor for
| anybody reading this
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23735962
|
| (please correct me if there were more recent
| developments)
| kybernetikos wrote:
| If you have ebooks in a number of different ecosystems,
| perhaps kobo, comixology, kindle, adobe digital editions,
| pdf, actual epubs, microsoft word documents, then it's
| amazing having access to the official apps to read those
| file formats and connect to the online services.
| sofixa wrote:
| It's a plus when talking about a tablet-sized device with
| a touch screen - there are more Android apps for those
| use cases than Linux ones.
|
| That will hopefully change with the PineNote.
| smhost wrote:
| vanilla linux doesn't have any good ereader apps
| orbital-decay wrote:
| koreader is one of the best reader apps out there.
|
| https://github.com/koreader/koreader
| salamandersauce wrote:
| Koreader has a lot of options but IMO the UI is perhaps
| the worst I've ever used. Also has giant use case gaps
| that will never be fixed like the fact it can't handle
| vertical Japanese writing.
| laserbeam wrote:
| > It just renders the epub to pdf and then throw the pdf into
| the note-taking app.
|
| I found it weird at first... But then you realise you're
| supposed to be able to write on the pages any time. The
| moment you support general epub rendering your pages are no
| longer fixed and your notes should move around as well. The
| moment you change your font size, all your notes, drawings
| and highlights no longer match the underlying text. I
| actually think "render to pdf", or more specifically to some
| fixed page format, is the ideal experience on this device.
| Realigning your notes is an impossible problem to solve and
| if I were a dev I would also discourage any features that
| reflow text on demand.
|
| Missing features (search in document, bookmarks, whatever)
| should be implemented for both pdfs and epubs.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > Realigning your notes is an impossible problem to solve
|
| Kindles have solved this problem, but instead, notes are
| not visible on the page but must be specially consulted.
| aeturnum wrote:
| It seems like a different problem if they are not
| rendering handwriting on the 'page' of the epub.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| OK, but both problems are "realigning your notes".
|
| It is possible to render an element to the side of the
| main text in a flowing epub; I did this when I wanted to
| include line numbers in a text. You could use that idea
| to keep visible notes _near_ their original location
| while reflowing the epub. But it wouldn 't work at all
| with notes that appear over the main text.
|
| It's also possible to just print the notes within the
| text; this is the approach taken by this recent edition
| of a selection of the Tai Ping Yan Ji (
| https://www.amazon.com/dp/7540351934/ ). Rather than
| being reproduced images of older printings that include
| notes, it's all flowing text and marginalia is reproduced
| inline, within brackets and in a smaller font. (This goes
| so far as to indicate which part of the page the
| marginalia originally appeared in, though I think this is
| more a matter of there being different words for
| marginalia from different locations.)
|
| That approach, of course, will not handle non-textual
| notes well.
| aeturnum wrote:
| I think OP could have used a more specific description
| for the sake of clarity.
|
| The idea is that using a reMarkable is just like using a
| pad of paper, so you can make arbitrary handwritten notes
| on the text. It's hard to imagine how arbitrary notes
| like that would be displayed on different epub
| renderings, so I think it's understandable why they use
| their approach. I also think it's a different problem
| than kindles have solved.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| Marginalia does not generally appear over the text on
| which it comments, because that would make both the text
| and the marginalia difficult to read. (Just look at the
| word - it's text that appears in the margins.)
|
| So for practically all purposes, treating each note as an
| image which should be rendered to the side of a
| particular part of the dynamically-flowed text will solve
| the problem. This isn't that hard to do.
|
| If someone is underlining parts of the text itself, that
| isn't independent of the flow of the text, and so it's
| harder to reflow. But I'm taking "notes" to mean
| commentary.
| lottin wrote:
| What do you mean a real pdf reader? The pdf reader displays
| pdfs, allows you to navigate the document and to scribble on
| it. Sure, it could do some things better, but it's perfectly
| functional as it is.
| salamandersauce wrote:
| I find my Boox Note Air pretty good. It runs Android
| basically every app I've thrown at it works although the fact
| that's eInk means stuff like Netflix, games etc. is obviously
| not a good experience. Some apps take a little fiddling to
| get working well on eInk like filtering out page turn
| animations or page refresh settings but once that's done it
| works well. The stock reader is very good at PDFs and
| passable at ePubs but you can just download another app so
| it's no big deal.
|
| Remarkable seems like it's still a little better at writing
| feel/writing latency but the Boox line is very good as eInk
| tablets.
| syshum wrote:
| hmm I found the eBook functionality to be passable. I read
| ebooks and PDF's on my Remarkable 2 all the time
|
| >It absolutely sucks as a general purpose device because
| everything except the very core experience is flat-out
| missing.
|
| As is intended, I do not want a general purpose device, I
| want an electronic notebook, to replace what used to be many
| many paper notebooks I used to keep meeting notes, daily
| activity logs, quick todo lists, etc.
|
| I do not want email on it, I do not want notifications on it,
| I wanted to replace my paper notebook, and be able to read
| ebooks
|
| The Remarkable 2 replaced my Paper-white and all physical
| notebooks for me.
| CPLX wrote:
| I am completely on your side, that's the same reason I
| bought mine.
|
| But damm I sure wish I had a way to take a note on my
| iPhone and have it show up on my Remarkable. That would
| mean when I pick up the Remarkable it has all my notes on
| it.
|
| Anyone know a good way to do that?
| syshum wrote:
| This is one area I agree they should look to improve or
| have offical API's so the community could improve.
|
| I am not in the Apple echosystem but I would love a way
| to better sync with OneNote, and/or have my Task list
| manageable by ToDo, ToDoist, or some other task manager,
| but appear on the Remarkable to check things off.
| jackson1442 wrote:
| You can connect it via USB and ssh locally. Obviously showing
| it in the interface would be better but that would work.
|
| It also fully supports 802.1X, which surprised me.
| tadbit wrote:
| Yeah... screw that. reMarkable's crappy UI shouldn't
| necessitate a bunch of extra work on the grandparent's part.
| They're completely justified in telling end users to go home
| to get the MAC.
| chefandy wrote:
| Yeah, that's bananas. Even the cheapest of cheap IOT devices
| expose that, even if it's just on a sticker.
| stefan_ wrote:
| You could also of course turn off the ineffective MAC
| filtering, was this option considered?
| easton wrote:
| I doubt that they are actually using MAC filtering, but
| probably some kind of captive portal that the Remarkable
| doesn't have support for (without setting up a SOCKS proxy,
| which doesn't count as a solution, IMO)[0]. Most of these
| captive portal systems allow someone with privileges to add a
| MAC address to the system manually, so that device has access
| without having to go through the portal itself. In the old
| days, that was the kosher way to get Xboxes and the like on
| hotel Wi-Fi (they'd often have a number you could call from
| the room to get a network admin to put your widget on the
| list).
|
| 0: https://remarkablewiki.com/tips/wifi
|
| (Also, given that OP's a part time helpdesk person, they
| can't turn the MAC filtering off anyway).
| shreddit wrote:
| Just connect to a wifi you have admin access to. This is very
| sad.
|
| https://support.remarkable.com/hc/en-us/articles/36000267477...
| blumomo wrote:
| Huh? You still need the root password which you only get once
| you open the settings menu. I protect my remarkable with a
| PIN code, so only I should see the root password.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| If you connect the device to a wireless network, you can
| see the MAC address from the perspective of the network.
| You can't connect without advertising your address.
| e12e wrote:
| Hm, you can't get the wifi MAC by connecting via USB, and ssh
| in over USB, then using iwconfig or looking at dmesg?
| nafizh wrote:
| I love my remarkable 2. The only thing that's missing for me is a
| backlight, it's unusable in terms of reading and writing if the
| room is dark. I would instantly upgrade to a RM3 with a
| backlight.
| bradstewart wrote:
| I use a good old fashioned clip-on book light with mine. Works
| great.
| throwaway_22wq wrote:
| I bricked the reMarkable 2 within a day or two of receiving the
| device. And since then it's been laying in the cupboard. I'm
| grateful for the recovery write up by ddvk, but I'd really wish
| Remarkable would make it a bit easier. I understand it's not
| their problem, but looking through the physical recovery flow is
| sadly utterly confusing if one isn't already a seasoned geek.
| They really should provide the SSH password printed and an easier
| way to reset the device.
|
| I'd love to give it a try soon. Unfortunately couldn't source the
| required parts from any European online shop. Can anyone help
| here or is AliExpress the only viable option?
| greenhathacker wrote:
| I used Adafruit for the USB micro breakout, and also a USB-C
| breakout. Their USB-C breakout had SBU-2 but I couldn't get it
| working (this was before I thought to flip the cable!). I
| bought the larger breakout seen in that post from Amazon[1].
|
| [1]: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08W3DYKX7
| guenthert wrote:
| "The USB-C breakout board with the pull down resistor connected
| on the bread board"
|
| Actually, it isn't. The resistor is in row 16 of the bread board,
| the cable to the connector is in row 15. I'm sure, you just
| wanted to test whether we're paying attention.
| greenhathacker wrote:
| Nice catch :) pushed an update.
| jcun4128 wrote:
| I got one for drawing sketches/designing stuff, I love the
| drawing feel on it due to the textured surface. Light and lasts a
| long time, I have a Surface Go 2 as well.
|
| R2 with eraser pen and folio was not cheap though.
| 0xakhil wrote:
| Can I use this as an ssh terminal to login to my development
| machine? I wonder if the display latency would make it non-
| starter for this usecase.
| benjiweber wrote:
| Kobos make good eink tablets for hacking. Run an easily
| editable linux. e.g.
| https://yingtongli.me/blog/2018/07/30/kobo-ssh.html
| idorosen wrote:
| My only regret about this device is that it seems to lack full
| disk encryption on the device or any meaningful privacy
| (encryption) for documents stored in reMarkable Cloud...which is
| all of them if you want to use features like Screen Share (f.k.a.
| LiveView). ReMarkable should not be able to access contents of
| docs backed up from my device without my password or recovery
| key, but AFAICT, there is no such protection whatsoever against
| internal threats.
|
| Other than that, I love my RM2, just can't use it for as much as
| I'd like because of the above.
| Eeems wrote:
| gocryptfs is available in toltec[0]. So you could in theory add
| full device encryption behind a password on startup. I know
| there has been some work on creating a UI for this kind of
| setup, but I don't know if anyone has actually released one
| yet.
|
| 0. https://toltec-dev.org/stable/
| mintplant wrote:
| The UI stuff is here: https://blog.redteam-
| pentesting.de/2021/remarkable-encryptio...
| Eeems wrote:
| That's one of the UI solutions You can also find the source
| here: https://github.com/RedTeamPentesting/remarkable-
| encryption.
|
| There is also https://github.com/plan5/remarvin
| hvocode wrote:
| I'm in the same boat. Due to security restrictions of my
| employer I can't use cloud services to store work related
| stuff. I was really bummed when I discovered that a lot of the
| interesting features of my RM2 require their cloud service.
| I've dug through the GitHub repos of RM2 hacks and open source
| tools that are available, but it still feels like I'm missing
| out.
| jcun4128 wrote:
| Can you not just use it as is? I have not connected to a WiFi
| yet and you can sync to your own cloud.
|
| I guess you do need a way to get the docs on the device.
| Their sync process is weird.
| greenhathacker wrote:
| I've never connected mine to WiFi, but that's because it
| does all I need through ssh.
| jcun4128 wrote:
| Are you able to ssh and move files by something like sftp
| or no? ssh by wire? Was curious what the file format is
| of each note.
| greenhathacker wrote:
| Yep! When you plug it in to your machine through a USB-C
| cable, it attaches as an ethernet device and answers to
| `ssh root@10.11.99.1`. You can also activate an http UI
| that you can then use to upload files with `curl --form
| "file=@\"$1\"" "http://10.11.99.1/upload"`.
|
| If you're curious about the file format, have a look at h
| ttps://remarkablewiki.com/tech/filesystem#user_data_direc
| to...
| jcun4128 wrote:
| thanks a lot for the info
| appel wrote:
| That was quite a rollercoaster.
| ChuckMcM wrote:
| This just points out one of the more amazing things about the
| reMarkable 2 is just how hackable it is. I have never had to do
| this level of surgery on mine but I do enjoy the community
| support for interesting scripts and such.
| unexpected wrote:
| This is anxiety-inducing and a good promo for the pinenote!
| myself248 wrote:
| The Pinenote can't arrive fast enough! I'm sitting on a
| ReMarkable 2 that I hate because I didn't realize how serious
| they were about crippling the usefulness of a really beautiful
| stack of hardware.
|
| It's really, Really, REALLY dead-set against letting you do
| anything useful like use wikipedia or stackoverflow on your
| ultra-long-battery-life beautiful-display device that you
| might, I dunno, want to use to look at reference material.
|
| Also Bluetooth is hardware-disabled, so no keyboard. What the
| hell, people. After seeing all the hacks and stuff I figured
| that might be possible, didn't learn otherwise until after
| placing the order. Whoops.
| Eeems wrote:
| Wikipedia is kind of solved[0]. As for stackoverflow, you
| might be able to use netsurf[1] already, I'm not sure how JS
| dependent it is.
|
| 0. https://github.com/dps/remarkable-wikipedia
|
| 1. https://github.com/alex0809/netsurf-reMarkable
| myself248 wrote:
| Whoah, thank you! I had not run across netsurf in all my
| looking.
| bradwood wrote:
| Nice -- shill us the Pinenote then!
|
| I'm in the market for an e-ink reader and have been
| considering the RM2, but the Pinenote looks pretty tasty
| too..
| [deleted]
| sabidib wrote:
| I ran into a similar problem as the author: trying to easily
| extract highlights without having to go through ssh.
|
| I ended up building a cmdline tool to solve the problem and have
| been using it for a while: https://github.com/sabidib/remarking
| anthk wrote:
| That's easy comparing to reflash a pocketchip and setting up a
| pinning kernel because if you upgrade the NAND will bork out as
| MLC+ubifs it's a recipe for a disaster. On similar ARM devices, I
| own a wm8850 netbook (armv7l) and I coudn't reflash it with a
| custom Uberoid "ROM" but oddly enough I could boot a custom
| kernel and config with a Slackware 14 rootfs. Some port from
| PostmarketOS exists (Tokio techbook), albeit is not for the same
| model, but setting up a similar u-boot woudln't be too difficult.
| My major issue is that that device is now semi-bricked and I
| think I could restore it with PXE, as it doesn't show anything on
| any reflashing trial.
| nahtnam wrote:
| Is this really worth $400 + $50-$100 for a pen? Why not just get
| an iPad instead?
| stonogo wrote:
| Because I don't want one? This device does what I want. The
| iPad doesn't. It's pretty straightforward.
| codezero wrote:
| Many people would be fine with that solution, it's definitely
| more robust in a lot of ways.
|
| A few reasons I like my remarkable (I have an original and a 2,
| and got my wife one):
|
| 1. forced isolation - no notifications come into this device
| when I'm using it out of the box. It's a nice intentionally
| crippled feature for focus.
|
| 2. The feel. It's like writing on paper, or very near to it.
| The texture of the tablet and the pencil together is really ...
| remarkable. It's not at all the same as writing on an iPad or
| iPad Pro.
|
| 3. I doubt in a quantitative comparison the remarkable would
| beat the iPad in latency, but it still feels damn good.
| Surprisingly good compared to other touch screen/pencil
| tablets.
|
| Gripes:
|
| - some edge effects when writing, loses some precision
|
| - the touch buttons on the original were more ergonomic for
| navigation, the swipe gestures in the 2 seem to work 50-60% on
| the first try.
|
| - replacing the nubs on the pencil is annoying, but I barely
| made it through my first included package with the remarkable
| 1, so not a _real_ problem.
|
| - software is rudimentary. A lot of quality of life features do
| not exist and maybe should. The writing app, which should kind
| of be the only thing given attention is pretty far behind, and
| has only made small improvements (at least visibly to me, this
| is not to diminish what I am sure is a lot of behind the scenes
| work to make everything fast).
|
| I probably wouldn't jump to buy a third one, unless it had
| physical navigation buttons, but the progression from 1 to 2
| was pretty amazing. The thing was already thin, but the 2 is so
| thin I'm amazed it can house a USB-C port.
| judge2020 wrote:
| The sentiment seems to be that it's pretty bad value but many
| like how hackable it is, with scripts and SSH access and such.
| Semaphor wrote:
| I'm pretty sure the iPad does not have an eInk screen?
| [deleted]
| Andrex wrote:
| 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.
| CPLX wrote:
| I got one as well, almost mad at myself when I did because I
| was 90% sure I would use it for a week and then never again.
|
| But I said what the hell. And I'm so glad I did, it's a great
| device that definitely fills a niche in my workflow. I mostly
| use it for brainstorming sessions. I like it a lot. I wish it
| synced more seamlessly but perhaps that'll happen at some
| point.
| davidandgoliath wrote:
| Me too! I thought it'd be a paperweight, but I immensely
| enjoy it. It's esp. nice if you throw a custom calendar on it
| (via reCalendar
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ys2fNQu0v0o&feature=youtu.be)
| ryanianian wrote:
| Killer app that I didn't know I needed: its built-in
| screen-share feature lets you easily and reliably share the
| tablet's screen with a desktop app over wifi. This has been
| super useful for whiteboarding/diagramming over Zoom.
|
| (Older versions of the software had a very buggy
| implementation that has since been fixed.)
| bradstewart wrote:
| I used to have nothing but trouble with the syncing features.
| But it all seems fixed as of the last update--both in terms
| of notebook/PDF syncing and the new ScreenShare, which
| replaced the incredibly buggy previous incarnation of live
| sharing.
| aeturnum wrote:
| I used a reMarkable 1 for my stint in grad school and it was
| invaluable. A PDF reader that wasn't hard on the eyes. I also
| really appreciated reMarkable's syncing software that let me
| see the notes I made on a laptop without the lag of eink.
|
| That said, it seems clear that the reMarkable team is not
| focused on the "taking notes on PDFs" use case. It works pretty
| well just because reMarkable is a good reading and handwriting
| platform, but it could be a lot better.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| It's a really impressive product. The fact it runs Linux makes
| it exceptionally interesting.
|
| > Codex -- A purposely designed Linux-based operating system
| for low-latency digital paper displays
|
| I wonder how it works. Are the drivers proprietary?
| Eeems wrote:
| It's an eInk screen, so yes-ish.
|
| We get around this by just piggybacking on the build in
| application's screen display routines[0]
|
| https://github.com/ddvk/remarkable2-framebuffer
| Matthias1 wrote:
| I had one for a couple weeks right about a year ago. I was very
| impressed by its ability to mimic paper. Unfortunately, it
| didn't do much more than mimic paper, so I sold it and bought
| some nice notebooks.
|
| However, I think that was before the software projects
| mentioned in this post. I never tried to SSH into it, so maybe
| it's possible to use it for things that you can't replace with
| paper.
| 83457 wrote:
| My main gripe is lack of direct bookmarking of pages in ebooks
| or even listing jump links to highlighted areas. I like writing
| on it but also want to use for reading large ebooks,
| highlighting important info, and keeping notes in context. Not
| realistic to do that if have to scroll through all pages.
| heleninboodler wrote:
| Bookmarks would be super nice. Also, a more secure way of
| storing the stylus. When I slide mine into my backpack I have
| a high chance of swiping the stylus onto the floor because it
| knocks off very easily. A couple of times, I haven't noticed
| and ended up going somewhere and being unable to use the
| reMarkable because it was at home under my desk or couch. One
| of these days I'm going to do that while I'm not at home and
| I'm going to be incredibly annoyed that I have to buy another
| $50 stylus.
| 83457 wrote:
| I have rm1 with the simple case marker slot. The rm2 magnet
| approach is something that would have me constantly
| checking to see if I lost it.
| colecut wrote:
| I haven't done it yet myself, but I've read it's fairly easy
| to install KOReader on the Remarkable 2 to provide a better
| ereader experience. Though when using this software, you
| wouldn't be able to mark up the text or add notes in the
| 'remarkable' way.
| kadoban wrote:
| It is indeed easy and very worth it. The rm2 is the _best_
| way to read text books and comics I've ever seen (using
| koreader), and separately it's great for taking notes.
| Those two uses don't really overlap for me so it's fine
| that they're in separate OSes, especially because it's one
| gesture to switch between them.
|
| The one and only thing that really bothers me about the
| device is the storage is pretty small. It's fine for books,
| but not great for comics, you end up having to swap out old
| ones instead of just having your whole library available.
| jonny_eh wrote:
| > The rm2 is the _best_ way to read text books and comics
| I've ever seen
|
| Comics? I thought it was black and white only. I'd assume
| an iPad (or other tablet) was better for comics.
| kadoban wrote:
| The comics I read are grayscale anyway for 99% of pages.
| YMMV if that's not true for your collection I suppose.
| pvg wrote:
| I tried this and promptly bricked it, although in a more
| recoverable way than the OP. It's not hard to do it right
| (I'd got some version of a dependency wrong) but there seem
| to be few guardrails. I just convert epubs to pdfs now for
| rm2 reading
| ltultraweight wrote:
| I installed koreader and I'm quite happy with reading long
| books that way.
| fsniper wrote:
| koreader is my goto reader on RM2 too. If only the device
| had a smaller size.
|
| I use 2 pages view in landscape mode. It's better, still
| does not provide the comfort Kindle Paper White offers.
|
| Also some back/frontlight could be helpful.
| namero999 wrote:
| Joining the bandwagon of happy remarkable users. It's the only
| device I own that respect my attention and focus. I use it
| mainly to take notes of (paper) books I read and to send web
| articles to it via its awesome browser extension.
| dimal wrote:
| I bought one and I don't understand the love. The device itself
| is wonderful. It's great that you _can_ ssh into it and do
| whatever. But by default, you can't even hook it up to
| DropBox/iCloud/GoogleDrive/whatever. The only supported way to
| get things off the device is by email, so in effect, in order
| for it to be useful, you _must_ set up rsync or some other
| custom process and risk bricking it and voiding your warranty.
| I'm pretty sure I could do that safely, but for almost $500, I
| shouldn't have to risk that. I returned mine.
| callahad wrote:
| > _you can 't even hook it up to
| DropBox/iCloud/GoogleDrive/whatever._
|
| Dropbox and Google Drive integration arrived with the latest
| update earlier this month.
|
| > _The only supported way to get things off the device is by
| email_
|
| I think you're forgetting reMarkable's own built-in cloud
| storage which syncs the device with the desktop and mobile
| apps. Additionally, you can access a built-in web interface
| on the device whenever it's connected to your computer via
| USB.
| pklausler wrote:
| I'm glad that you enjoy yours. Mine has been sitting in my dead
| technology drawer since about two weeks after it arrived. The
| pen is too laggy, the contrast is too low for me to read PDFs
| comfortably, and the note-taking experience doesn't come close
| to what I get from a good pen and good paper. Nice try, but meh
| from me.
| cstejerean wrote:
| Could have returned it for a full refund within 30 days. Any
| reason you decided to keep it in the dead technology drawer
| instead?
| jakeva wrote:
| I spent the money only to find out I don't actually take
| notes in any form other than with a keyboard. I have used it
| to do some sketching though, but I don't really do that much
| either.
| ngai_aku wrote:
| I'll take it off your hands if you'd like ;)
| pklausler wrote:
| I thought about selling or donating it, but I have no way
| to be confident that I've wiped it of all credentials and
| content.
| criddell wrote:
| I'm just waiting for them to release a bigger one. I want
| either US letter or A4 size.
| Andrex wrote:
| It's decent enough for sheet music at least. :) As long as
| you have good eyes.
| chefandy wrote:
| Would you mind sharing a bit about you use case? Do you use it
| for any sketching or artwork or primarily notes/etc?
| Loughla wrote:
| I'm not the OP, but I absolutely love my RM2.
|
| Use case: I work in a publicly funded institution where the
| contents of my notes are often required for lawsuits,
| settlements, and general FOIA inquiries on occasion. Being
| able to carry around 50 different notebooks for various uses,
| cordon them off from each other, and reproduce them in either
| original form, or converted to text is a remarkable time
| saver.
|
| The only thing it doesn't have that I desperately wish it did
| is to be able to tag pages and search via tag. That would
| make my life so much better.
|
| It's fun to draw on, but I'm a garbage artist. So it's
| pleasant to be able to doodle while I'm thinking in meetings
| and then immediately erase the doodle, but I don't use it for
| more than that.
|
| Marking up pdf or other files is pretty great, too.
| spockz wrote:
| How well does text conversion work for you? Including the
| search function? It works poorly for my colleagues.
|
| Does it have the option to straighten lines? Say that I
| draw a box, will it make it square or a circle round?
|
| Are annotations to pdf searchable as well?
| Loughla wrote:
| So it works better than any other item with written to
| printed text conversion that I've found. My handwriting
| is especially bad, and I would say it has an 80-90%
| correct rate, compared to my last system that I tried
| (neonotes smartpen) that is light years ahead. That was
| less than 10% correct.
|
| I have never used the search function. I do not convert
| to text unless I have a specific use. This is why I wish
| we could tag pages and search via tag - I had to create
| my own recordkeeping system via headers that you can see
| in the gridview to be able to quickly find what I need.
|
| >Does it have the option to straighten lines? Say that I
| draw a box, will it make it square or a circle round?
|
| When you are drawing, it follows your pen. From what I
| can tell, there is no 'snap to grid' or whatever option
| that might be. That might be nice. If you are talking
| about once you convert to text, it does not convert
| drawings.
|
| Overall, the search is pretty terrible. Just adding tags
| would alleviate that, and make this, for me, the perfect
| tool for work.
| Andrex wrote:
| My primary use-case right now is storyboarding. The RM2 has
| dozens of templates (notebook paper, grid paper, etc.) and
| three of them are storyboard templates at various sizes. I
| haven't been able to adjust to Wacoms etc., but drawing on
| the RM2's display feels "right." I can zip through drawing up
| storyboards and then email the PDF immediately to
| collaborators. I can choose to send individual pages as PNGs,
| too. Only small downside is lack of color, but that's the
| eInk breaks.
|
| I also use it for annotating and displaying PDFs as well as
| sheet music when practicing piano. I don't read many eBooks
| on it because I have a smaller Kindle which has a light,
| making it more versatile when I'm in the mood for reading.
|
| Hope this helps!
| chefandy wrote:
| It does-- thanks. Storyboarding is about the level of
| graphic capability I'd need. I keep trying to adjust to
| using my iPad Pro w/Apple Pencil 2. It's an incredibly
| capable set of tools, but I just can't get comfortable with
| it.
| Andrex wrote:
| I can't speak to iPads but the RM2 really almost feels
| like paper, it's very close to having a real sketchpad.
| LegitShady wrote:
| My problem with it is that I'd rather have an iPad and a
| cheaper e-reader to get access to many more apps and functions.
| If it was 1/2 the price it would be at least interesting but I
| use the iPad to read ebooks, to browse the web, to paint in
| procreate, to sequence synths and record using an audio
| interface, to watch YouTube in the kitchen or Netflix in bed,
| and with a logitech keyboard work on documents in Microsoft
| office. As I find new useful apps it becomes more and more
| useful itself.
|
| The remarkable does cost less than the iPad but it has maybe an
| 1/8th or a 1/16th of the functionality, and my Kobo reader cost
| me less than $100 for most of the benefits of having an e-ink
| reader. It lacks an app ecosystem and seems aimed as a tinker
| device instead of an end user product.
|
| But I guess if you have to have a larger e-ink tablet the
| remarkable seems to be the thing.
| wedn3sday wrote:
| I absolutely cannot read for any significant period of time
| on an ipad screen, it kills my eyes. I love my rM2, but agree
| that not having support for 3rd party apps seriously sucks,
| its (IMO) the one thing thats really missing from the device.
| LegitShady wrote:
| Turn down the brightness, use something with an inverted
| colour scheme, adjust the text size to something
| reasonable, and don't read in the dark if you're doing that
|
| But as I said I also have a Kobo reader for reading on its
| own, and it was very cheap compared to the remarkable.
| shados wrote:
| The point of a remarkable is to be an e-ink notebook to write
| in. It has a few extra features, like, it CAN be used as an
| e-reader, but it's not really its primary focus.
|
| So with that in mind, an e-ink reader doesn't make for a good
| writing device, and an ipad is lacking the wacom style e-ink
| tablet.
|
| Is it overpriced for what it is? Yeah, probably, that's the
| curse of small batch hardware in the world of Google and
| Apple.
|
| But an ipad and an e-reader don't really replace it's niche.
| If you're cool with the writing experience on an ipad, then
| the Remarkable is essentially useless to you.
|
| Personally, I really, really love my Remarkable 2 (I also had
| the original, but the 2 is way better).
| LegitShady wrote:
| Imho the only thing the iPad loses over Wacom is the shape
| of the pen (my pro pen 2 is head and shoulders more
| comfortable to use than the apple pencil). The remarkable
| pen is not much different than the apple pencil. Wacoms
| strength is their application support/drivers support which
| remarkable doesn't have and iPad has its own ecosystem. I
| suppose also that you can get very large tablet displays
| with Wacom too while the iPad tops out at roughly 13".
|
| Facebook has been pushing ads for this device at me since
| it was available and each time I look I can't imagine why
| anyone would want one except that they have money to burn
| and time to waste beta testing on something that doesn't
| have an ecosystem but has a low power screen.
|
| Amazon is already a major consumer of eink screens and
| could eat their lunch tomorrow and close the whole company
| down in a year. There's no future for it without an app
| ecosystem and a more compelling reason to exist
|
| An iPad and an e-reader do much more than a remarkable for
| not that much difference in cost. I dont see a long term
| future for their company or product
| necovek wrote:
| I don't have a rm2, but I am intrigued by all the praise
| for the paper-like feel of the pen/screen combination:
| have you tried it and not noticed any difference, or are
| you simply talking based on the specs?
|
| Honestly wondering because it's too expensive to be an
| impulse buy for me, on top of not being available to my
| country, so I'd have to jump through hoops and pay extra
| to get it locally, but I am hoping I can replace gobbles
| of paper with one device like that.
| LegitShady wrote:
| I got a matte screen protector for my iPad with a similar
| feel. Neither the iPad with the paperlike protector nor
| the remarkable actually feel like paper, but they do feel
| better than drawing with a plastic pen on a glass screen.
| My 16" Wacom display tablet also has something similar
| applied from factory to provide a texture to it
| necovek wrote:
| To further clarify, you have actually compared reMarkable
| 2 (and not reMarkable 1, which was never equally praised)
| to all the other devices you mention?
|
| (Basically, that would make me not get a reMarkable 2
| before I can try one out, and if my impression matches
| yours, I wouldn't bother and would instead wait out for
| PineNote)
| LegitShady wrote:
| given another poster's post in this page describing their
| return experience, I would advice you to not a get a
| remarkable 2 until you can try one in person no matter
| what people say.
| shados wrote:
| Remarkable 1 was pretty similar to the 2 in that respect
| (most of the wins of the 2 are unrelated.)
|
| I don't really agree with the previous poster. Drawing on
| a Remarkable really feels much better than alternatives
| (similar to a Wacom tablet, which imo is pretty unique),
| no matter which kind of screen protector you put on it.
|
| I've only tried an Ipad Pro once, but it really wasn't
| close.
|
| There's also the battery that's nice. I only need to
| charge this thing once in a blue moon (more often than a
| Kindle, but still). Because of WFH I haven't used it as
| much (I prefer typing my notes if I can be at my desk. I
| use my tablet on the go), and using it only a few minutes
| here and there the battery's at 60% after several months.
| LegitShady wrote:
| it feels like drawing on an ipad with a matte screen
| protector. depending on the screen protector they have
| slightly different feels. overall it doesn't feel like
| paper, it just has more friction than drawing on glass
| with a plastic pencil tip.
| naikrovek wrote:
| is it bricked if it can be recovered? bricking, the way I learned
| the term, means unrecoverable via any software means and almost
| any (or actually any) hardware means.
| comeonseriously wrote:
| Right. Same here. But, like waterproof vs water resistant,
| people don't seem to use the term correctly anymore.
| loloquwowndueo wrote:
| Back in the day "bricked" meant it was actually and permanently
| about as useful as a brick - no chance of recovery. These days it
| just seems to mean "can't boot and can't be fixed/reflashed
| easily".
|
| Having to plug a resistor into the device to put it in any sort
| of recovery mode does walk a very fine line between "not really
| bricked" and "dude you squeezed water out of a stone, you are a
| demigod".
| MaxBarraclough wrote:
| HN has seen many discussions over the proper meaning of
| _bricked_. [0][1][2][3]
|
| I think it's because it's an ambiguous metaphor. Does it mean
| _currently only as useful to you as a brick_ , or does it mean
| _as objectively valuable as a brick_. Personally I prefer the
| original stronger definition, where recoverable issues do not
| count as _bricked_ , but so it goes.
|
| [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20379772
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20381892
|
| [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25731376
|
| [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22845778
| MrGilbert wrote:
| One might call it "soft-bricked".
| ansible wrote:
| "soft-bricked" is a common term in some of the Android forums
| I have frequented in the past.
|
| The Remarkable 2 is very nice, I would like to try one out,
| though I don't have any immediate use for something like
| that, except maybe as an e-reader.
|
| I still use paper notebooks, but I rarely need to actually do
| something with the contents afterwards, other than refer to
| them occasionally. Maybe if I was more organized...
| deepdmistry wrote:
| I am open mouthed
| cortesoft wrote:
| Isn't `bricked then recovered` a contradiction in terms?
| aidenn0 wrote:
| given that the term "unbricking" exists, I would say no?
| cortesoft wrote:
| If you can fix it, it wasn't bricked it was just not working.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| If you have to de-solder the flash, reprogram the flash and
| re-solder it back in, is that bricked?
|
| If yes to above, then what about using an in-circuit
| programmer?
|
| If yes to above then what about having to move a jumper to
| get a ROM monitor?
|
| If yes to above then what about having to enter some magic
| button combination at boot?
|
| The line is fuzzy, no?
| cortesoft wrote:
| Yeah, I think you are right. I am convinced. I would
| probably draw the line at physical work, meaning if it
| requires physically opening the device and
| changing/fixing/bypassing wiring it can count as bricked.
| jiveturkey wrote:
| Well, I mean, that is a reasonable line. But it's still
| moving the goalposts. I'll stick with bricked meaning
| bricked.
|
| I lost that personal battle for 'hacker' and 'begs the
| question' but dammit I am sticking to it for 'brick'!!
| cortesoft wrote:
| > I'll stick with bricked meaning bricked.
|
| Well that is what I am sticking with, too!
| qzw wrote:
| The term "undying" also exists, just saying.
| revolvingocelot wrote:
| This. "Bricked" is a word that signifies that the speaker
| doesn't know how to make the device go. It's not exactly
| meaningless, but I certainly take it differently coming from
| a grognard as opposed to a Pakled.
| n0cturne wrote:
| Generally I'd say yes, but when recovery includes a breadboard
| and soldering I think 'bricked then recovered' is acceptable!
| cortesoft wrote:
| Fair enough. I have changed my mind on unbricking being a
| thing.
| hellotomyrars wrote:
| I absolutely think the term gets overused and I think the term
| "soft-bricked" is even more peculiar.
|
| But given the extent of the required work to recover the device
| here (actual hardware work, non-trivial and not for a
| layperson) then I think it's appropriate.
|
| Not a hill I'm going to die on but it does kind of bother me
| when someone describes their device as bricked and all they
| need to do is plug it in and run some kind of simple restore
| utility or otherwise.
| capableweb wrote:
| Things that were once thought bricked might in the future
| become unbricked if the right knowledge is acquired. "Bricked"
| is more a state of "thought to be impossible to fix" than
| something permanent.
| cortesoft wrote:
| That makes sense, especially since there is an
| epistemological issue with being able to say something is
| 'bricked'... there would be no way to distinguish between "I
| don't know how to fix it" and "No one knows how to fix it"
| fouc wrote:
| I think "bricked" as a term originated from flashing the
| firmware on mobile phones. If the firmware ended up in a non-
| recoverable state, the phone became as useful as a brick. It
| was theoretically possible to take physical intervention to
| pull the firmware chip out and flash it with an fpga programmer
| tool, but most people wouldn't have the equipment for that.
| zbuf wrote:
| I think we've been using this term long before mobile
| phones...
|
| This feels a bit like the word "bug"; I'd be quite interested
| to know if it can be traced to its actual first use.
|
| People associate it with phones because as I remember they
| were always being described as the size (and weight) of a
| brick, and that's when they were working.
| RicoElectrico wrote:
| A decade ago I managed to brick my brother's Nokia 5300 (custom
| firmware - PPM mods) and thankfully recovered it by "dead phone
| USB flashing" - the last resort method in Phoenix, Nokia
| internal software for service people. It's super finicky and
| works on n-th attempts, but has a non-zero change of success.
| edoceo wrote:
| > works on n-th attempts, but has a high change of success
|
| 60% of the time it works every time.
| RicoElectrico wrote:
| Just get lucky with the timing :) Like a QTE but without
| the prompt, that was the main problem. But as programming
| was done in parts (firmware, PPM (like Win32 resources),
| content (FAT32 image of storage) it depended on which part
| was corrupted.
|
| Edit: some people had success on 50th attempt[1], talk
| about perseverance ;)
|
| [1] http://nokiahacking.pl/naprawianie-niewlaczajacego-sie-
| telef...
| Someone1234 wrote:
| Bricked is a [current] state (wherein there's no official
| recovery workflow available, and the device is as usable as a
| brick).
|
| To give an example, certain dead devices can be saved after
| being baked in the oven to re-seat components that have worked
| loose. According to the "No True Bricking" argument that
| constantly comes up, those devices were never really bricked
| because they were later fixable, even though you're literally
| performing a re-manufacturing step.
|
| In fact what exactly would a "True Bricking" look like? Even in
| cases where a major component dies, if you desolder it, and re-
| solder a new one is that a "True Bricking?"
|
| See I have zero patience for the "No True Bricking" stuff since
| it is a logical Swiss cheese.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| The requirement for electronics knowledge and skills is a
| clear dividing line for me.
|
| I've recovered and hacked devices for friends using software.
| Especially phones which have recovery functions I can use but
| I've also hacked some older game consoles. I can't do
| anything if electronics skills are required though. At that
| point it becomes specialized repair work.
|
| I suppose nothing's really bricked if you're smart enough.
| Just desolder a chip, reprogram it and resolder it back in? I
| don't know how. I tried to learn what I could but it turned
| out hardware is _a lot_ harder than software.
| cortesoft wrote:
| You obviously have some patience for it because you spent the
| time to make some pretty good arguments as to why you can
| unbrick something. I think you have me convinced.
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