Doesn’t ship to Europe 
.
I’ve just ordered yet another set of two!
I’m in the UK and use a freight forwarder - https://www.forward2me.com/
I have five devices that I shipped in three batches this way. Took overall around 2-2 1/2 weeks per shipment. I paid approx. $40 shipping for a single and $64 for two. No other fees, taxes or duties were charged.
So it does double the cost (for a single) but still cheaper than any I’ve found being sold in the UK and the devices are SO worth it.
That’s an option but luckily I found mine at 50€ sold as used, but in reality brand new. Obviously without any warranty…
even the new ones don’t have any manufacturer warranty. Whether you could get a replacement from the Amazon seller… not sure.
So I start with a freshly-restored device from the RSA tool, flash thelk2nd and rootfs images with edl, reboot and… get stuck at recovery on boot. Am I missing something? It looks like those are the only two seps needed in the first post.
@FelixKa any pointers on getting USB OTG set up? I’m still running on the Android 8.1 linked in this thread but I’ve had no luck with:
- some powered USB OTG adapters
- editing android.hardware.usb.host.xml
- and now trying this “pull pin B8 to ground”, which I think I hooked up right using the breakout board you linked (though didn’t get out my multimeter yet).
Random internet searches said to edit this value “/sys/class/power_supply/usb/usb_otg” but I don’t know if that will help. Any advice on getting USB OTG working on the device in general, or postmarketOS is set up so differently than the ROM I’m on?
They are showing as sold out.
Still on Amazon for $40. I don’t expect them to return to Woot, as many people are probably buying multiple units and the end of supply may be visible to the seller.
Woot is owned by Amazon
Yes, I ordered two more from Amazon USA (I’m in Europe) for $80. I use a shipping forwarder so the total will probably closer to $120. Ordering more than two makes me liable for import duty and taxes.
Still having issues getting this working. Anyone have any pointers?
Indeed, the only two steps should be
edl w boot lk2nd-lenovo-cd-18781y-latest.img
edl w userdata pmos-lenovo-cd-18781y-testing-20240529-rootfs.img
(adjust for whichever images you use)
Ensure that you uncompress the rootfs image before you flash it. I host it on my server compressed with xz, so on Linux and macOS unxz will do the job of turning the img.xz file into an img file. On Windows, I believe, 7zip may do it. But I’m not sure.
Which recovery mode do you end up in? The one with the black screen where it comes up via USB with USB ID 900e? Or do you actually get dropped into a recovery menu on the screen?
I haven’t tried OTG on Android yet.
From a technical perspective it looks like you tried the right things. Given that there is no USB ID line hooked up to the PMIC it cannot sense when there is an OTG device plugged in. The USB OTG power supply will therefor also not come on, so no power is provided on the USB-C jack.
Hence, the USB controller must be manually placed in Host mode from the OS.
The “pull B8 to ground” thing is a hack that I enabled in the postmarketOS Kernel to “abuse” the extra GPIO lines that are broken out on the USB-C port to signal plugging in of an OTG device.
I’d expect that not to do anything on Android.
I can check if it works for me on Android with the USB rig that works on pmOS. But I’ll probably have more time in July to look at it than I have right now.
Does the latest pmos-release (postmarketOS // v24.06: The One With Over 250 Devices) contain any improvements for this project ?
I just got two of these from the Amazon link above.
I download the PMOS images from here: thinksmart
Installed using this procedure:
The device boots up to what appears to be Gnome/GDM but the touchscreen is inoperable. I have a USB-C breakout and 1.8v UART adapter on the way so I can at least get in to the thing to troubleshoot. Any suggestions in the meantime?
Edit: Answered my own question. Was able to SSH in with a password of 1234 (was originally trying pmos)
Edit 2: Realized I must have a Himax model and that’s not supported in the “latest” boot and rootfs images. Flashed the version from here: https://felix.kaechele.ca/projects/thinksmart/pmos-lenovo-cd-18781y-testing-20240422.tar.xz and have a working touchscreen and wifi.
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That’s odd. I though I had tested that image on a Himax variant…
Oh well, I’ll upload a new image in a bit. I’ve rebased the kernel to 6.9.6.
The patches are slowly moving upstream, so that is good.
I’ll drop the pmOS changes on them sometime in the next two weeks. That way everyone should have a much easier time building their own images.
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Same issue here. Finally got the image flashed, thanks to @FelixKa and the helpful unxz command. However I’m staring at the Swipe to Unlock screen and not able to get it to respond to anything. Not sure which variant I have.
I think I have an idea as to what may be happening. Let me check.
Please try this new lk2nd image:
lk2nd-lenovo-cd-18781y-20240628.img
This is a completely new lk2nd build compiled from the unified lk2nd codebase over at msm8916-mainline/lk2nd (the original upstream for lk2nd). The msm8953 fork has been re-merged with it, which is neat. I’ve submitted my patch for the ThinkSmart View for inclusion as well: dts: msm8953: Add Lenovo ThinkSmart View (CD-18781Y) by kaechele · Pull Request #380 · msm8916-mainline/lk2nd · GitHub
Here’s also an updated image (based on Kernel 6.9.6) for those who want it: pmos-lenovo-cd-18781y-testing-20240628-rootfs.img.xz
I tested both of these together on both the Focaltech and Himax variants and they both work for me. So if either of the images won’t work for you try them in combination.
Background: I changed the “compatible” string for the Focaltech touchscreen somewhere along the way to enable 10 finger touch (as I’m certain people desperately need this feature 
). This may have lead to the Focaltech Touchscreen no longer being activated if used with a newer kernel.
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Just saw this. Won’t be able to test until later, but will report back one I do.
Loaded it up last night. And it worked!
Seeing the Chapter 7 Livestream last week: Any chance of getting microWakeWord on this?
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