Hi Ratta / Supernote team,
I'm an independent developer working on bringing postmarketOS (mainline Linux) to the Supernote A6 X. I want to be upfront that this is a personal, non-commercial project — I'm not jailbreaking or cracking anything, and I've kept careful backups of the stock firmware. My goal is simply device longevity, which is why I'm writing to you specifically: a working Linux port is very much in the spirit of the sustainability and "distraction-free, long-lived device" values your brand is built on.
The progress so far has honestly been encouraging. Working today on a custom-built kernel:
- E-ink display driving (EBC), text and images, correct orientation
- Wi-Fi (AP6256/bcmdhd) and USB networking
- Wacom EMR pen input — reading raw events, thousands sustained
- Basic real-time pen-to-ink handwriting on the panel
Where I've hit a wall is the pen digitizer working together with the e-ink display. Two related problems:
-
Driving the EPD panel while the Wacom digitizer is actively sensing destabilizes the digitizer (it appears to be an EPD-EMR coordination issue). The published kernel references a coordination hook (ebc_set_tp_power) but ships it — and the pen-writing engine — as prebuilt objects without source.
-
As a result I can't reach the smooth, instant ink your own note app achieves, and diagnosing further would mean soldering onto the debug UART pads — which I'd really prefer not to do, since opening the unit risks damaging it.
Before I take that riskier hardware route, I wanted to ask: would you be able to help with any of the following?
- Documentation (or the corresponding source, given the kernel is GPL-licensed) for the e-ink pen-writing / TCON components that ship as prebuilt blobs
- Any guidance on the Wacom digitizer <-> EPD power/timing coordination
- Whether there's a safe, non-invasive debug console option I might be missing
Hi Ratta / Supernote team,
I'm an independent developer working on bringing postmarketOS (mainline Linux) to the Supernote A6 X. I want to be upfront that this is a personal, non-commercial project — I'm not jailbreaking or cracking anything, and I've kept careful backups of the stock firmware. My goal is simply device longevity, which is why I'm writing to you specifically: a working Linux port is very much in the spirit of the sustainability and "distraction-free, long-lived device" values your brand is built on.
The progress so far has honestly been encouraging. Working today on a custom-built kernel:
Where I've hit a wall is the pen digitizer working together with the e-ink display. Two related problems:
Driving the EPD panel while the Wacom digitizer is actively sensing destabilizes the digitizer (it appears to be an EPD-EMR coordination issue). The published kernel references a coordination hook (ebc_set_tp_power) but ships it — and the pen-writing engine — as prebuilt objects without source.
As a result I can't reach the smooth, instant ink your own note app achieves, and diagnosing further would mean soldering onto the debug UART pads — which I'd really prefer not to do, since opening the unit risks damaging it.
Before I take that riskier hardware route, I wanted to ask: would you be able to help with any of the following?