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+title: Kobo Clara HD Notes for Plato (and KSM)
+date: 2021-03-27 12:00
+---
+
+These are my notes for getting Plato on the Kobo Clara HD from scratch
+as well as some notes for getting KSM to work, but I now boot directly
+into Plato instead of through KSM.
+
+Previously, I didn't really like using KOReader because it was kind of
+slow and was written in Lua. At the time of using Plato, it seemed nice
+but it didn't cover thumbnails for books, which while it is a minor
+detail, I find books easier to be recognized with a cover thumbnail in
+addition to their title. This was added in release 0.9.10 but as an
+optional feature which I didn't somehow see until recently when I
+retried it. HOWEVER again, I didn't like using k/fmon as I had to still
+use Nickel to get back into KOReader/Plato/whatever alternate reader
+when I wanted to go away from using Nickel.
+
+<ignore>
+That was when I found out about KSM and how there was a working version
+for the Clara HD. KSM is like an alternate bootloader for the Kobo
+readers and it apparently doesn't work very well with newer models like
+the Clara HD and up, but someone got it to work with those devices.
+[KSM 09](https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?s=c34e41df391c61810a6b06f991c29168&t=293804) is apparently not maintained anymore and I'm not sure if KSM
+10 is being developed or not since I'm pretty sure it's closed source.
+
+> Development and support for KSM stopped some time ago. Therefore, do
+> not use it!
+
+"That sign can't stop me because I can't read!" - Me imitating D.W.
+from the PBS Kids cartoon Arthur on Mar. 26, 2021 when I saw that it
+can be used on my Kobo
+
+The latest firmware version that KSM sort of supports is v4.25.15875
+but it can probably work with a newer version like v4.26+ that would
+likely only need a couple changes to /etc/init.d/rcS, if any changes
+were needed at all. I'll be using v4.26 for the rest of this
+article/guide.
+</ignore>
+
+Recently, after seeing how my Kobo boots into KSM and Nickel through
+the rcS file, I realized that I could've instead just booted directly
+into Plato, and plato.sh (the script that runs Plato) has a standalone
+option that supports just that! The KSM notes are still going to be
+here in case someone still wants to use KSM.
+
+## Installing Plato (or probably any other reader like KOReader)
+This part probably applies to any other reader other than Plato like
+KOReader but I haven't personally tested them. All you have to do is
+[get the latest release](https://github.com/baskerville/plato/releases/latest) at Plato's repo and unzip it's contents into
+a folder called plato in /path/to/kobo/mount/.adds, the latter folder
+of which should have already been created by KSM if you are using that.
+If you are using KSM, there should be a new option below "start nickel"
+called "start plato" when you have rebooted the device. Read below if
+you aren't using KSM.
+
+## Loading Plato on Boot
+Since I don't want to load Nickel only to load into another reader like
+the recommended options in Plato's forum thread (kfmon, fmon, and
+NickelMenu) suggest, I noticed that I could have booted into Plato
+directly. The only requirements for doing this having access to the
+rootfs, so either through a telnet/ssh session, or having the sd card's
+root/first partition mounted to your computer, or just ftp/rsyncing the
+files to your Kobo.
+
+First I suggest making a copy of rcS if you haven't already in case an
+update overwrites it. My copy is named custominit.sh. Next you'll want
+the Kobo's /etc/inittab to boot with custominit.sh instead of rcS:
+/etc/inittab:
+
+```
+#::sysinit:/etc/init.d/rcS
+::sysinit:/etc/custominit.sh
+```
+
+The rest of the lines don't need to change. Then you should open
+custominit.sh in your favourite editor to add the lines at the bottom
+but before hindenburg is executed:
+
+```
+cd /mnt/onboard/.adds/plato     # or whereever Plato is
+PLATO_STANDALONE=1 ./plato.sh
+```
+
+You would probably also want to remove the lines where Nickel-specific
+programs/scripts are running like nickel, hindenburg, pickel, sickel,
+etc.
+
+Now on subsequent boots, Plato should automatically have been loaded.
+Boot times may also be slightly faster! :D
+
+## Installing KSM 09 (not doing anymore)
+First you would want to [download the Clara HD version of KSM 09](https://www.mobileread.com/forums/attachment.php?s=902078ac2e6fe8ff7a0947b56cbcade6&attachmentid=166556&d=1538176531) and
+[the fix for v4.25](https://www.mobileread.com/forums/attachment.php?s=902078ac2e6fe8ff7a0947b56cbcade6&attachmentid=184756&d=1610745905). Then, you would want to unzip the KoboRoot.tgz
+with separate filenames so they don't replace each other and we would
+untar those into the same directory. After that, we would cd into the
+directory and tar it's contents into a new KoboRoot.tgz and place it in
+/path/to/kobo/mount/.kobo/.
+
+An example of what I did after downloading and unzipping the files are
+below:
+
+```
+mkdir koboroot
+tar -xvf KoboRoot-main.tgz -C koboroot
+tar -xvf KoboRoot-v4.25-darkmodefix.tgz -C koboroot
+cd koboroot
+tar -czvf ../KoboRoot.tgz .
+cd ..
+rm -r koboroot
+```
+
+After your Kobo untars it and you wait a while, you should be presented
+with KSM's main screen :D ksm09's main screen running on the kobo clara
+hd
+
+## Auto-Boot into Plato instead of Nickel via KSM (not doing anymore)
+First make sure USB support is enabled in KSM and then mount your Kobo
+to your computer. Once mounted, go to
+/path/to/kobo/mount/.adds/kbmenu_user/confoptions and edit
+ksm_ini_options.txt in your favourite editor. You should see many
+options that are listed but the one that we're interested in is
+ksmAutoselectoption which may have start_nickel and start_koreader
+already and what we want to do is add ksmAutoselectoption=start_plato.
+After a quick restart to reload the options file, you should be able to
+see the new option in KSM's settings under [general] and add item if it
+wasn't already added. Now Plato should auto-boot on subsequent
+powerons.