FreeInk: Open ecosystem for e-readers

FriedPickles 485 points 113 comments July 21, 2026
freeink.org · View on Hacker News

Discussion Highlights (20 comments)

Krutonium

Huh, this would be a fantastic option for my Kobo Touch. It freely flashes whatever firmware you give it, and it'll boot from an SD Card besides.

Mr_Eri_Atlov

Interesting to see XTEINK here; hopefully it means they will be more open to community software initiatives.

imzadi

I got an Xteink X4 a few weeks ago and love it. I've tried out a few different firmwares but haven't settled on one yet. I love the screen and how simple the interface is. It's kind of a pain in the butt getting my Kindle books on there, but worth the effort. It's also encouraging me to buy books outside of the Amazon ecosystem. I've been getting more stuff from Humble lately.

kapsteur

Please port this OS to older Kindles that Amazon no longer supports.

fudged71

I've used CrossPoint on X4. I'm not sure how this is related (CrossPoint is linked in the footer)

idle_zealot

I got an Xteink X 4 a few weeks ago and it's a very cute device. While I'm a fan of the hardware what's been really fun is noodling around with building some custom firmware and sync architecture to optimize content for the device's extremely limited CPU and Memory. That's meant a custom format for images and metadata that match the device's hardware and interface needs and an automatic ingest pipeline for building these files from common book/comic formats. Maybe some day I'll even read a book on the thing!

dominotw

xteink seems to be everywhere these days. Did it really "kill doomscrolling" for anyone?

mahimai

Does this can be installed kindle, like for very old versions?

t1234s

Are there any instances from the closed e-book system (kindle, nook, etc..) where you paid for a book and the book was either updated to a revised version or just removed from the device because of the content in the book?

monocularvision

I searched for each of the supported eInk devices and they were all tiny. Anyone know if there is a larger reader (maybe Paperwhite size-ish) that might run this?

Varelion

Perfect -- this is exactly the kind of project I was hoping to see gain some traction as of late.

Ritewut

I want this but for ePaper tablets like Remarkable.

a-dub

i think i remember seeing an unlockable bootloader on the remarkable?

wernerb

A Kobo ereader is as open as I need it with koreader installed. The Kobo Libra 2 black and white is the best ereader I have ever had. (not the color version,,unfortunately a step back in reading quality for normal reading)

boznz

Lots of the comments here are about porting to older kindles or eReaders, but the firmware is currently for the ESP32 chipset which none of these use.

shevy-java

Better than giving my money to Apple for sure.

tcoff91

I really like my Boox e-reader because I can install any android app on it. I run Storyteller on it and it syncs position to my storyteller server. So i can listen to the audiobook on my iPhone and then pick up reading on my Boox from where I was listening.

gausswho

Regard the Supported Devices table, where the last column declares all devices Full (in red). Firmware too chonky for any of them! Oh Claude.

something98

Running Zotero (directly) is the big requirement for my next e-reader. Yeah, I can sync pdfs from my library with webdav or something else. But I want the full Zotero interface.

easterncalculus

Wasn't the efficacy of the focus/bionic reading stuff disproven awhile back? Are people still using it?

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