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ONYX BOOX Go 6 (onyx-go6)

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This device is marked as not booting.
ONYX BOOX Go 6
Onyx BOOX Go 6
Onyx BOOX Go 6
Manufacturer ONYX BOOX
Name Go 6
Codename onyx-go6
Model Go6
Released 2023
Type ebook reader
Hardware
Chipset Qualcomm Snapdragon 662 (SM6115)
CPU 4x Kryo 260 Gold @ 2.0 GHz + 4x Kryo 260 Silver @ 1.8 GHz
GPU Adreno 610
Display 6" Carta 1300 (1448x1072)
Storage 32GB
Memory 2GB
Architecture aarch64
Software
Original software Android
Original version 11
postmarketOS
Category testing
Pre-built images no
Unixbench Whet/Dhry score 0.0


Device owners


Notes

Random information:

  • ONYX BOOX notably does not release kernel sources for their products; as such, using a downstream kernel is likely out of the question.
    • Using mainline is pretty much our only option (and is preferable anyways); the only potential difficulty is getting the display to work. The display appears to be connected over DSI (need to verify), and might be running in command mode. However, we don't know what commands are being sent, since we don't have access to the downstream driver sources, so this will have to be reverse-engineered. If we're lucky, maybe just simple-framebuffer will work... See also: an attempt to add DRM helpers for EPD chips in general, but it never got followed up on past its initial submission in 2022.
  • There is no proper codename for this device, it seems; Android reports the hardware field as "BOOX", and the DTB compatibles appear to be taken from a dev board, "bengal-idp", with "BOOX" added at the end
    • Some places, like the DTB compatible, refer to this device as the Poke 6 (which makes sense as it's the direct followup to the Poke 5). AFAICT this name is used on the Chinese market, and the device is overall the same as the worldwide Go 6.
  • The bootloader is unlocked by default (yay!), but this is pretty much useless, because:
  • adb reboot bootloader reboots to the bootloader (fastboot), but all relevant commands return "unknown command" (flash, boot, set_active, flashing unlock, oem unlock ...); "oem status" and "getvar" work. According to the internet, it appears that Onyx removed these commands in some update for all devices. No clue if the updated beta OS has them, and I'd rather not risk it...
    • You can also enter fastboot by powering off the device, then powering it on and repeatedly pressing/releasing the power button (not too fast?).
  • adb reboot fastboot reboots to the fastboot in the recovery; this one is also locked down, but at least it can do set_active. However, in my testing, setting the active slot to b caused the device to go into a bootloop where it would constantly reboot into crashdump mode (nothing appeared on screen, but it appeared as such through USB, and edl performed a dump). (It could also be related to me trying to run fastboot's raw reboot-edl and reboot-emergency commands... but that seems unlikely, since both were reported as invalid.) Luckily I could still enter the bootloader with the power button method described above.
  • You can reboot to EDL mode with adb reboot edl; it appears to be fully functional. This is the only known way to flash to the device.
  • The device reboots into crashdump mode on kernel panic. This is useful for retrieving kernel logs and even bootloader logs (look for "QHEE Image Loaded" string).
  • There's a thread on the MobileRead forums with board photos and UART/EDL test point locations.

Components

Element type Element In mainline? Works? Notes
Chipset Qualcomm Snapdragon 662 (SM6115) Y Supported in mainline
Backlight ??? (onyx,backlight), Texas Instruments LM3630A? ? No idea what the exact model is, downstream handles this through the "onyx,backlight" driver. Exposes two separate controls - "onyx_bl_br" for brightness and "onyx_bl_ct" for color temperature. A separate driver is also enabled - lm3630a (at i2c bus 0 @ 0x38) - but while the device is present at that address, it's not yet clear whether it actually controls the backlight (notably, it's a driver for white LEDs and does not provide any sort of color control - to check?)
E-Ink display ??? N Driven by an Onyx-specific "software EPDC" driver.
EBC tc358762 (Toshiba TC358762?) Y According to the internet, this is a DSI <-> DPI/DBI bridge chip, which might hint at how the display is connected. EBC might stand for "E-Book Controller" like it does on Rockchip chips.
Hall effect sensor GPIO Y Uses onyx,onyx-hall driver downstream but appears to be a regular GPIO-controlled sensor.
Touchscreen Focaltech FTS (FT5452/FT5436?) P Kernel logs list FT5452. DTS lists chip type to 0x54360402, according to this random file I found it appears to correspond to the FT5436. Might be possible to use the edt_ft5x06 driver.
Display PMIC Texas Instruments TPS651851 N "PMIC for E Ink"; provides some regulators.
USB-C mux Fairchild Semiconductor FSA4480 Y Presumably required for USB-C audio dongles.
PMIC Qualcomm PM6125 (PM4250?) Y Board photo reveals it's a PM4250, but DTS says PM6125. Most likely they're identical.
Charger Qualcomm PMI632 (SMB5) P Other features like power-on key are supported, but AFAICT fuel gauge/charging is not.
WiFi/Bluetooth Qualcomm WCN3950? / WCNSS N Found in string extracted from bluetooth_a partition dump. Not 100% sure if it's the correct chip yet.