kobo_clara-plato.md (5951B)
1 title: Kobo Clara HD Notes for Plato (and KSM) 2 date: 2021-03-27 12:00 3 --- 4 5 These are my notes for getting Plato on the Kobo Clara HD from scratch 6 as well as some notes for getting KSM to work, but I now boot directly 7 into Plato instead of through KSM. 8 9 Previously, I didn't really like using KOReader because it was kind of 10 slow and was written in Lua. At the time of using Plato, it seemed nice 11 but it didn't cover thumbnails for books, which while it is a minor 12 detail, I find books easier to be recognized with a cover thumbnail in 13 addition to their title. This was added in release 0.9.10 but as an 14 optional feature which I didn't somehow see until recently when I 15 retried it. HOWEVER again, I didn't like using k/fmon as I had to still 16 use Nickel to get back into KOReader/Plato/whatever alternate reader 17 when I wanted to go away from using Nickel. 18 19 <ignore> 20 That was when I found out about KSM and how there was a working version 21 for the Clara HD. KSM is like an alternate bootloader for the Kobo 22 readers and it apparently doesn't work very well with newer models like 23 the Clara HD and up, but someone got it to work with those devices. 24 [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 25 10 is being developed or not since I'm pretty sure it's closed source. 26 27 > Development and support for KSM stopped some time ago. Therefore, do 28 > not use it! 29 30 "That sign can't stop me because I can't read!" - Me imitating D.W. 31 from the PBS Kids cartoon Arthur on Mar. 26, 2021 when I saw that it 32 can be used on my Kobo 33 34 The latest firmware version that KSM sort of supports is v4.25.15875 35 but it can probably work with a newer version like v4.26+ that would 36 likely only need a couple changes to /etc/init.d/rcS, if any changes 37 were needed at all. I'll be using v4.26 for the rest of this 38 article/guide. 39 </ignore> 40 41 Recently, after seeing how my Kobo boots into KSM and Nickel through 42 the rcS file, I realized that I could've instead just booted directly 43 into Plato, and plato.sh (the script that runs Plato) has a standalone 44 option that supports just that! The KSM notes are still going to be 45 here in case someone still wants to use KSM. 46 47 ## Installing Plato (or probably any other reader like KOReader) 48 This part probably applies to any other reader other than Plato like 49 KOReader but I haven't personally tested them. All you have to do is 50 [get the latest release](https://github.com/baskerville/plato/releases/latest) at Plato's repo and unzip it's contents into 51 a folder called plato in /path/to/kobo/mount/.adds, the latter folder 52 of which should have already been created by KSM if you are using that. 53 If you are using KSM, there should be a new option below "start nickel" 54 called "start plato" when you have rebooted the device. Read below if 55 you aren't using KSM. 56 57 ## Loading Plato on Boot 58 Since I don't want to load Nickel only to load into another reader like 59 the recommended options in Plato's forum thread (kfmon, fmon, and 60 NickelMenu) suggest, I noticed that I could have booted into Plato 61 directly. The only requirements for doing this having access to the 62 rootfs, so either through a telnet/ssh session, or having the sd card's 63 root/first partition mounted to your computer, or just ftp/rsyncing the 64 files to your Kobo. 65 66 First I suggest making a copy of rcS if you haven't already in case an 67 update overwrites it. My copy is named custominit.sh. Next you'll want 68 the Kobo's /etc/inittab to boot with custominit.sh instead of rcS: 69 /etc/inittab: 70 71 ``` 72 #::sysinit:/etc/init.d/rcS 73 ::sysinit:/etc/custominit.sh 74 ``` 75 76 The rest of the lines don't need to change. Then you should open 77 custominit.sh in your favourite editor to add the lines at the bottom 78 but before hindenburg is executed: 79 80 ``` 81 cd /mnt/onboard/.adds/plato # or whereever Plato is 82 PLATO_STANDALONE=1 ./plato.sh 83 ``` 84 85 You would probably also want to remove the lines where Nickel-specific 86 programs/scripts are running like nickel, hindenburg, pickel, sickel, 87 etc. 88 89 Now on subsequent boots, Plato should automatically have been loaded. 90 Boot times may also be slightly faster! :D 91 92 ## Installing KSM 09 (not doing anymore) 93 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 94 [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 95 with separate filenames so they don't replace each other and we would 96 untar those into the same directory. After that, we would cd into the 97 directory and tar it's contents into a new KoboRoot.tgz and place it in 98 /path/to/kobo/mount/.kobo/. 99 100 An example of what I did after downloading and unzipping the files are 101 below: 102 103 ``` 104 mkdir koboroot 105 tar -xvf KoboRoot-main.tgz -C koboroot 106 tar -xvf KoboRoot-v4.25-darkmodefix.tgz -C koboroot 107 cd koboroot 108 tar -czvf ../KoboRoot.tgz . 109 cd .. 110 rm -r koboroot 111 ``` 112 113 After your Kobo untars it and you wait a while, you should be presented 114 with KSM's main screen :D ksm09's main screen running on the kobo clara 115 hd 116 117 ## Auto-Boot into Plato instead of Nickel via KSM (not doing anymore) 118 First make sure USB support is enabled in KSM and then mount your Kobo 119 to your computer. Once mounted, go to 120 /path/to/kobo/mount/.adds/kbmenu_user/confoptions and edit 121 ksm_ini_options.txt in your favourite editor. You should see many 122 options that are listed but the one that we're interested in is 123 ksmAutoselectoption which may have start_nickel and start_koreader 124 already and what we want to do is add ksmAutoselectoption=start_plato. 125 After a quick restart to reload the options file, you should be able to 126 see the new option in KSM's settings under [general] and add item if it 127 wasn't already added. Now Plato should auto-boot on subsequent 128 powerons.