8 ms·

Having used the reMarkable 1 tablet for over a year now, the hackability is so refreshing to have in a consumer device. The tablet runs Linux and you can SSH in

Having used the reMarkable 1 tablet for over a year now, the hackability is so refreshing to have in a consumer device. The tablet runs Linux and you can SSH into with root access. The hacking community is quite active, one frequently asked question is how to get and run custom software on the device. There's the Entware[0] package repository for running ARMv7 software on the tablet. Recently a community maintained package repository, toltec[1] for tablet-specific software was created and is actively maintained. For Nix users, I've been helping build a Nix-based cross-compile toolchain[2], so you could easily cross-compile a good amount of the 60K packages on Nixpkgs for the tablet. Upstreaming the cross toolchain to Nixpkgs is in the works. To see what the community is up to, see the IRC channel[3], Reddit[4] and Discord server[5]. [0] https://github.com/evidlo/remarkable_entware https://github.com/evidlo/remarkable_entware [1] https://github.com/toltec-dev/toltec https://github.com/toltec-dev/toltec [2] https://github.com/siraben/nix-remarkable https://github.com/siraben/nix-remarkable [3] #reMarkable on Freenode [4] https://reddit.com/r/RemarkableTablet/ https://reddit.com/r/RemarkableTablet/ [5] https://discord.gg/JSSGnFY https://discord.gg/JSSGnFY

lovelyviking 6y ago
I stumbled on some article describing that Remarkable calls home and sends some statistics. I've checked and indeed it does. My hacking attitude says it is absolutely unacceptable. The good news you can disable it, and I did. But for poople to be aware , this is what it does by default. Can't say I like that part of rM software. Unfortunately now I've looked for the article and can't find it. If you saw one, please drop the link here, there is more info there.
- terpimost 6y ago
  Majority of consumer facing products collect usage analytics, otherwise they don’t know how to improve the product.
  - seneca 6y ago
    > Majority of consumer facing products collect usage analytics, otherwise they don’t know how to improve the product. Producers managed to improve products for thousands of years without violating the privacy of their customer. Equating slightly inconvenient with impossible doesn't make for a great argument.
    - ben_w 6y ago
      The improvements were stumbles in the dark by comparison — people didn’t even realise colour blindness existed until the industrial revolution. That said, while I am fine with automated bug tracking for this sort of goal, I absolutely agree that all automated tracking needs to be opt-in rather than opt-out.
      - DubiousPusher 6y ago
        Yeah, while I'm not a fan of involuntary data collection it completely makes sense why firms do it. Unskewing data collected in voluntary and self reported scenarios is a treacherous and sometimes impossible undertaking. Edit: Often times we're not talking about the difference between good data and really good data. We're talking about the difference between useful and useless data.
        account42 6y ago
        Automatically collected data can be just as misleading as voluntarily reported data.
        ben_w 6y ago
        Howso?
  - lovelyviking 6y ago
    >Majority of consumer facing products There is a limit to what majority can decide for a person and it's called "rights of a person" designed exactly for that purpose. So, for instance, majority in Nazi-Germany was ok with humiliating and eventually killing Jewish people and that fact doesn't make it justifed anyhow. Majority sometimes disrespect freedom of speech using bullying innocent comments advocating respect for a freedom which we observe recently even here in form of downvoting and it also have no justification what so ever. >otherwise they don’t know how to improve the product. they should ask and pay for participation if they wish to know, or they simply don't know, it's ok. If I wasn't asked about it I consider it a spyware activity and we have no idea what they do with this information now or in the future. R. Stallman explanation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CP8CNp-vksc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CP8CNp-vksc
    - theodric 6y ago
      Godwin in 3 comments: it's not a record, but it's a contender!
  - shirakawasuna 6y ago
    Opt-out analytics is not the only way to do research on your own products or users. Not by a lot. And it being popular doesn't justify it, it's just an invasion of privacy that many people put up with (or are unaware of).
    - Pyramus 6y ago
      I don't agree it's a 0 or 1 decision, you can gather analytics in a privacy-preserving way, see e.g. plausible.io [1] or similar implementations that track users without collecting personal data. [1] https://plausible.io/self-hosted-web-analytics https://plausible.io/self-hosted-web-analytics
      - rorykoehler 6y ago
        Looks like a great service. I hadn’t seen it before and the timing is perfect
  - cambalache 6y ago
    I suppose your mattress phones home to tell its makers how often you sleep and with which frequency you do other vigorous physical activities on it. Only way to improve it.
    - stevehawk 6y ago
      a lot of mattresses do.. and it's likely your smart watch does as well
    - Groxx 6y ago
      If it's internet-connected, yes, absolutely. There are quite a few of these, e.g. https://sleepgadgets.io/smart-mattress-smart-bed/ https://sleepgadgets.io/smart-mattress-smart-bed/ (random selection from googling)
    - XCSme 6y ago
      I think that a mattress is a bit simpler than an application with hundreds of thousands of possible interactions. There are not so many different ways you can use a mattress.
      - cambalache 6y ago
        > There are not so many different ways you can use a mattress. You lack imagination my friend
  - afarviral 6y ago
    They need to use another approach. Its spying.
  - davisr 6y ago
    > otherwise they don’t know how to improve the product. Or, you know, they could just ask customers how the product is working for them. Automated data collection is a huge, huge problem and stampedes over civil liberties. We ought to control our computers, and not be controlled by them, which is why I vigorously oppose all non-free (proprietary, non libre) software.
    - naikrovek 6y ago
      I see your point here, and then I count the number of times I have responded to survey requests or participated in nielsen ratings surveys, even when paid to do it. That number is zero.
      - davisr 6y ago
        I agree, most companies conduct feedback in a completely impersonal way. I tell my customers that my software doesn't contain any tracking or telemetry, and that human-to-human feedback (direct email) from users is the only way I can know of problems. I also make it very clear that I am open to all kinds of feedback. This is great because I get bug reports directly, can understand how people are using the program in their workflow, and can contextualize feature requests and build solutions that fit for everyone. Users like this because they are actually being listened to by the software's author, there is no overhead to fixing problems, and they aren't being shoehorned into a database.
        funkaster 6y ago
        Of course direct feedback is good. But it's not scalable and you risk of running a very real case of bias towards whoever you're asking. Running telemetry on your software is not "evil" or "stampedes over civil liberties". You can most certainly run telemetry in a way that protects people's privacy and gives you insightful data on how your users operate and interact with your software. I know this, I've worked on an analytics service serving hundreds of millions of users. I'm building right now a feature-flagging/configuration/core metrics service that does exactly that: preserve user privacy and allow developers to learn about their users (not easy and there are some trade offs, like accuracy).
  - throwaway9980 6y ago
    I usually use two squares of toilet paper per wipe. Occasionally I’ll use three, sometimes accidentally and sometimes because I need three. Whenever I use three I wonder to myself how that will appear when the numbers are crunched. Then I remember there’s no analytics for my toilet paper.
    - eucryphia 6y ago
      Depends if your a scruncher or a folder.
    - dotancohen 6y ago
      > Then I remember there’s no analytics for my toilet paper. Apparently there are, but they are self-hosted and on a real-time multitasking system.
      - chrisweekly 6y ago
        hahahahaha reminds me of the Blue Man Group (performance artists) doing a hilarious send-up of the internet interpreted as interconnected sewage plumbing
  - m463 6y ago
    I really worry about the normalization of this sort of thing. Really - in a respectful relationship with a vendor - you would gain SO much by just asking. Even if people say no. Really, it's like "I wasn't stalking you, I was just collecting valuable feedback for improving our next date!" <slap!> Instead, try "Hey, how are you - did you have fun?"
    - nicbou 6y ago
      When I worked at HERE we had a feedback form in the corner. More than half of the feedback was people who were angry about the feedback form itself.
      - m463 6y ago
        Did it pop up along the side of the screen and ride up and down?
- davisr 6y ago
  Some of us hackers feel the same way. I'm the author of a paid-but-GPLv3+ program called RCU[1] that almost 400 people use because they don't want to, or legally can't, interface with a cloud. I never connect my tablet to the net except to get software updates. [1]: http://www.davisr.me/projects/rcu/ http://www.davisr.me/projects/rcu/
  - reginaldo 6y ago
    Thanks for the software and documentation you've written for the reMarkable. I've taken a different approach for running Debian buster, but your guide [1] saved me a lot of time nonetheless. [1] http://www.davisr.me/projects/parabola-rm/ http://www.davisr.me/projects/parabola-rm/ chroot for now, systemd-nspawn as soon as I have time to hack on it later, as I want to be able to switch between whatever I'm running and reMarkable's original software.
    - davisr 6y ago
      I'm really glad you found it useful! Do you think it saved you $20 worth of time? :) Parabola-rM is really a labor of love, and half of the proceeds are donated to the FSF and Parabola project. It would mean a tremendous amount to have your financial support for independent free software development (and if you have already bought a copy, thank you!).
      - reginaldo 6y ago
        It did, and I'd been meaning to show my appreciation. I just bought it (finally).
        davisr 6y ago
        Thank you!
        lovelyviking 6y ago
        Would love to buy once I restore access to online payments after pandemic. As I understood you do provide sources if I am correct? I am thinking about porting to rM some programming languages and curios how you've managed with framebuffer .
- echelon 6y ago
  Apple and Google do the same thing, except they aren't open source or user modifiable. (Well, Apple isn't.) It's interesting that the second most visible comment on a thread about an open platform product holds them to a much higher standard. (I'm not calling out your comment, but rather the general perception.) I wish more people would take your perspective for our phones and devices.
- KajMagnus 6y ago
  > absolutely unacceptable. The good news you can disable it Sounds pretty acceptable to me actually I like Syncthing's approach: In Syncthing, telemetry is enabled by default, so they get statistics and can improve their product. But there's also a prominent info banner about this, so everyone learns about it, and can opt out.
simonebrunozzi 6y ago
> The tablet runs Linux and you can SSH into with root access. What? That's amazing. I agree with you, so refreshing. A pity that three friends tried the latest one and all decided to return it. Very dissatisfied with the product overall.

lovelyviking 6y ago

I stumbled on some article describing that Remarkable calls home and sends some statistics. I've checked and indeed it does. My hacking attitude says it is absolutely unacceptable. The good news you can disable it, and I did. But for poople to be aware , this is what it does by default. Can't say I like that part of rM software. Unfortunately now I've looked for the article and can't find it. If you saw one, please drop the link here, there is more info there.

terpimost 6y ago
Majority of consumer facing products collect usage analytics, otherwise they don’t know how to improve the product.
- seneca 6y ago
  > Majority of consumer facing products collect usage analytics, otherwise they don’t know how to improve the product. Producers managed to improve products for thousands of years without violating the privacy of their customer. Equating slightly inconvenient with impossible doesn't make for a great argument.
  - ben_w 6y ago
    The improvements were stumbles in the dark by comparison — people didn’t even realise colour blindness existed until the industrial revolution. That said, while I am fine with automated bug tracking for this sort of goal, I absolutely agree that all automated tracking needs to be opt-in rather than opt-out.
    - DubiousPusher 6y ago
      Yeah, while I'm not a fan of involuntary data collection it completely makes sense why firms do it. Unskewing data collected in voluntary and self reported scenarios is a treacherous and sometimes impossible undertaking. Edit: Often times we're not talking about the difference between good data and really good data. We're talking about the difference between useful and useless data.
      - account42 6y ago
        Automatically collected data can be just as misleading as voluntarily reported data.
        ben_w 6y ago
        Howso?
- lovelyviking 6y ago
  >Majority of consumer facing products There is a limit to what majority can decide for a person and it's called "rights of a person" designed exactly for that purpose. So, for instance, majority in Nazi-Germany was ok with humiliating and eventually killing Jewish people and that fact doesn't make it justifed anyhow. Majority sometimes disrespect freedom of speech using bullying innocent comments advocating respect for a freedom which we observe recently even here in form of downvoting and it also have no justification what so ever. >otherwise they don’t know how to improve the product. they should ask and pay for participation if they wish to know, or they simply don't know, it's ok. If I wasn't asked about it I consider it a spyware activity and we have no idea what they do with this information now or in the future. R. Stallman explanation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CP8CNp-vksc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CP8CNp-vksc
  - theodric 6y ago
    Godwin in 3 comments: it's not a record, but it's a contender!
- shirakawasuna 6y ago
  Opt-out analytics is not the only way to do research on your own products or users. Not by a lot. And it being popular doesn't justify it, it's just an invasion of privacy that many people put up with (or are unaware of).
  - Pyramus 6y ago
    I don't agree it's a 0 or 1 decision, you can gather analytics in a privacy-preserving way, see e.g. plausible.io [1] or similar implementations that track users without collecting personal data. [1] https://plausible.io/self-hosted-web-analytics https://plausible.io/self-hosted-web-analytics
    - rorykoehler 6y ago
      Looks like a great service. I hadn’t seen it before and the timing is perfect
- cambalache 6y ago
  I suppose your mattress phones home to tell its makers how often you sleep and with which frequency you do other vigorous physical activities on it. Only way to improve it.
  - stevehawk 6y ago
    a lot of mattresses do.. and it's likely your smart watch does as well
  - Groxx 6y ago
    If it's internet-connected, yes, absolutely. There are quite a few of these, e.g. https://sleepgadgets.io/smart-mattress-smart-bed/ https://sleepgadgets.io/smart-mattress-smart-bed/ (random selection from googling)
  - XCSme 6y ago
    I think that a mattress is a bit simpler than an application with hundreds of thousands of possible interactions. There are not so many different ways you can use a mattress.
    - cambalache 6y ago
      > There are not so many different ways you can use a mattress. You lack imagination my friend
- afarviral 6y ago
  They need to use another approach. Its spying.
- davisr 6y ago
  > otherwise they don’t know how to improve the product. Or, you know, they could just ask customers how the product is working for them. Automated data collection is a huge, huge problem and stampedes over civil liberties. We ought to control our computers, and not be controlled by them, which is why I vigorously oppose all non-free (proprietary, non libre) software.
  - naikrovek 6y ago
    I see your point here, and then I count the number of times I have responded to survey requests or participated in nielsen ratings surveys, even when paid to do it. That number is zero.
    - davisr 6y ago
      I agree, most companies conduct feedback in a completely impersonal way. I tell my customers that my software doesn't contain any tracking or telemetry, and that human-to-human feedback (direct email) from users is the only way I can know of problems. I also make it very clear that I am open to all kinds of feedback. This is great because I get bug reports directly, can understand how people are using the program in their workflow, and can contextualize feature requests and build solutions that fit for everyone. Users like this because they are actually being listened to by the software's author, there is no overhead to fixing problems, and they aren't being shoehorned into a database.
      - funkaster 6y ago
        Of course direct feedback is good. But it's not scalable and you risk of running a very real case of bias towards whoever you're asking. Running telemetry on your software is not "evil" or "stampedes over civil liberties". You can most certainly run telemetry in a way that protects people's privacy and gives you insightful data on how your users operate and interact with your software. I know this, I've worked on an analytics service serving hundreds of millions of users. I'm building right now a feature-flagging/configuration/core metrics service that does exactly that: preserve user privacy and allow developers to learn about their users (not easy and there are some trade offs, like accuracy).
- throwaway9980 6y ago
  I usually use two squares of toilet paper per wipe. Occasionally I’ll use three, sometimes accidentally and sometimes because I need three. Whenever I use three I wonder to myself how that will appear when the numbers are crunched. Then I remember there’s no analytics for my toilet paper.
  - eucryphia 6y ago
    Depends if your a scruncher or a folder.
  - dotancohen 6y ago
    > Then I remember there’s no analytics for my toilet paper. Apparently there are, but they are self-hosted and on a real-time multitasking system.
    - chrisweekly 6y ago
      hahahahaha reminds me of the Blue Man Group (performance artists) doing a hilarious send-up of the internet interpreted as interconnected sewage plumbing
- m463 6y ago
  I really worry about the normalization of this sort of thing. Really - in a respectful relationship with a vendor - you would gain SO much by just asking. Even if people say no. Really, it's like "I wasn't stalking you, I was just collecting valuable feedback for improving our next date!" <slap!> Instead, try "Hey, how are you - did you have fun?"
  - nicbou 6y ago
    When I worked at HERE we had a feedback form in the corner. More than half of the feedback was people who were angry about the feedback form itself.
    - m463 6y ago
      Did it pop up along the side of the screen and ride up and down?
davisr 6y ago
Some of us hackers feel the same way. I'm the author of a paid-but-GPLv3+ program called RCU[1] that almost 400 people use because they don't want to, or legally can't, interface with a cloud. I never connect my tablet to the net except to get software updates. [1]: http://www.davisr.me/projects/rcu/ http://www.davisr.me/projects/rcu/
- reginaldo 6y ago
  Thanks for the software and documentation you've written for the reMarkable. I've taken a different approach for running Debian buster, but your guide [1] saved me a lot of time nonetheless. [1] http://www.davisr.me/projects/parabola-rm/ http://www.davisr.me/projects/parabola-rm/ chroot for now, systemd-nspawn as soon as I have time to hack on it later, as I want to be able to switch between whatever I'm running and reMarkable's original software.
  - davisr 6y ago
    I'm really glad you found it useful! Do you think it saved you $20 worth of time? :) Parabola-rM is really a labor of love, and half of the proceeds are donated to the FSF and Parabola project. It would mean a tremendous amount to have your financial support for independent free software development (and if you have already bought a copy, thank you!).
    - reginaldo 6y ago
      It did, and I'd been meaning to show my appreciation. I just bought it (finally).
      - davisr 6y ago
        Thank you!
        lovelyviking 6y ago
        Would love to buy once I restore access to online payments after pandemic. As I understood you do provide sources if I am correct? I am thinking about porting to rM some programming languages and curios how you've managed with framebuffer .
echelon 6y ago
Apple and Google do the same thing, except they aren't open source or user modifiable. (Well, Apple isn't.) It's interesting that the second most visible comment on a thread about an open platform product holds them to a much higher standard. (I'm not calling out your comment, but rather the general perception.) I wish more people would take your perspective for our phones and devices.
KajMagnus 6y ago
> absolutely unacceptable. The good news you can disable it Sounds pretty acceptable to me actually I like Syncthing's approach: In Syncthing, telemetry is enabled by default, so they get statistics and can improve their product. But there's also a prominent info banner about this, so everyone learns about it, and can opt out.

simonebrunozzi 6y ago

> The tablet runs Linux and you can SSH into with root access. What? That's amazing. I agree with you, so refreshing. A pity that three friends tried the latest one and all decided to return it. Very dissatisfied with the product overall.