A shell on your tablet.
A clear way back.

The rightmost bottom button and right Alt/Option+Space open Settings, even when the bar is hidden. Left Alt+Space opens the Unicode keyboard. Ctrl+Shift+B passes through to terminal programs, including Emacs. Caps Lock can act as Control (the default) or Caps Lock. A solid fill marks the active choice; a dashed outline marks keyboard focus. All settings, including font size, input method, contrast and update mode, stay in RAM and save when Inkline exits normally.

The four-part bottom bar shows Escape, current battery state, Quit, and Settings. Run inkline-battery or ~/inkline battery for percentage and charging state; Inkline also puts the compact percentage in its no-color shell prompt. Battery polling uses the read-only kernel interface and does not write to storage. Visiting an empty terminal slot starts a shell. Each terminal keeps its own programs, live screen and graphics; scrollback is disabled. The terminal indicator counts open terminals; nine is the limit. Type exit to close one; Quit asks before closing all of them.

The automated Folio/USB shortcut tests pass on the tablet. Physical checks for the new shortcuts, keyboard LEDs, and USB hotplug remain. Complete keyboard instructions ↗

1. Press right Alt/Option+Space to open Settings. Left Alt+Space opens the Unicode keyboard.
2. Open Input method. Tap a method, or select it with Up/Down and Enter.
3. To return to normal US typing, select Off — direct keyboard. This turns off composition; Inkline’s shortcuts remain available.

The selected method applies to all nine terminals and is saved across restarts. Each terminal keeps its own unfinished composition. A solid fill and filled circle mark the active method; the dashed outline marks keyboard focus.

On the US Type Folio, right Alt/Opt + 0 types +. Hold right Alt/Opt and press the minus key immediately left of Backspace to type =. With input method Off, Shift+6 types a literal ^, so c^2 stays as typed. Select US-International when you want accented letters.

Choose a Chinese candidate.

Type a syllable or code. Space or Enter chooses the first candidate; 1–9 or a tap chooses another. Use [ and ] to change pages, Backspace to edit, and Escape to cancel. With Zhuyin, number keys assigned to Bopomofo enter sounds; tap a candidate to select it. On Type Folio, right Option+Tab sends Escape.

The website’s language selector changes these pages only. Use the tablet’s Input method menu to change typing. The app’s menu labels are shown in English here so you can find the same labels on your tablet.

Copy with a touch.

Drag a finger across terminal text, then press right Option+C. If an app requests mouse input, hold Shift to select text with the pen or mouse. Switch terminals and use right Option+V to paste. Wrapped lines and Unicode are preserved. The 128 KiB text clipboard stays in RAM, is shared by all nine terminals, and supports OSC 52. It is separate from the notebook clipboard and clears when Inkline closes.

Cut belongs to the editor. Terminal output is read-only. Option+X copies the selection and explains how to cut in the running editor; OSC 52 alone cannot delete document text. Programs that forward OSC 52 can set or query Inkline’s clipboard.

Touch controls and shell basics.

Scrollback is disabled to conserve RAM. Swipe two fingers left for the next terminal or right for the previous one. One finger selects text. The pen acts as a mouse when requested by an app; hold Shift to select text instead.

Each terminal keeps only its live and alternate screens. Graphics leave the shared compressed RAM arena when their anchors leave the live screen or memory is scarce; no graphics cache is written to flash.

Inkline sets HOME=/home/root for its shells, so cd without arguments takes you home. Quit and reopen Inkline after updating to apply this fix.

A size that suits the page.

Pinch with two fingers to change text from 6 to 48 pixels. The gesture now responds at about half its previous rate and adjusts in one-pixel steps for finer control. Existing shells stay running and resize with the text. Settings also has minus and plus buttons. Keyboard zoom combinations have been removed.

Text darkness

Normal text is pure black. In Settings, drag Text darkness to adjust letter edges; 50% is the original rendering. Tab selects the slider and Left/Right adjusts it. Colors and graphics are preserved. The value stays in RAM during use and saves on normal Inkline exit.

Inkline starts Bash, which reads the tablet’s ~/.bashrc. Quit and reopen Inkline after upgrading to use the new launcher.

Physical pinch, pen, Folio, and USB acceptance checks remain. Complete input and clipboard instructions ↗

Unicode, contrast, and updates.

Left Alt+Space opens the Unicode keyboard. Scroll by touch or use arrows and page keys; Tab changes category. Type a hexadecimal codepoint and press Enter to insert it. Escape or Done closes the keyboard; F2 opens Settings. Available glyphs depend on the installed fonts.

The minimum contrast slider separates text from its background. It defaults to 35%; text darkness defaults to 50%. Both stay in RAM during use and save on normal exit. A crash or forced shutdown can lose unsaved setting changes.

Choose an update profile in Settings: Fast favors speed; Balanced uses UI updates; Crisp favors grayscale quality and is the default; Mono uses black and white; Saver batches output. Settings save on normal exit. Previously saved choices are preserved.

Your programs, one shortcut away.

Settings → Command shortcuts (page 2) lets you assign a command to a letter. Choose Terminal or Native e-paper app, then Save. Remove asks for confirmation; Reset draft discards edits. T is locked. Only Save and confirmed Remove write to storage. The command-line tool manages the same bindings.

All global shortcuts now use Opt+RightAlt, including T and the held Backspace recovery chord. Use the Folio’s separate Opt key; on USB keyboards use Windows/Command (Super). Ordinary Ctrl+Alt remains available to Emacs. Quit and reopen Inkline after upgrading; installation preserves open terminals.

Run these commands on the tablet. The example registers Opt+RightAlt+E to open Emacs in a new terminal, lists bindings, then removes that binding. Arguments are stored literally. Shortcut programs read your Bash settings, including optional Python cache preferences.

~/inkline shortcut register e emacs
~/inkline shortcut list
~/inkline shortcut deregister e

For a program that draws its own e-paper screen, use ~/inkline shortcut register a --epaper /home/root/my-app. Inkline pauses while it runs and resumes when it exits or crashes. Logs and runtime caches stay in RAM.

Opt+RightAlt+T is permanent. It cannot be registered or deregistered. It stops a native shortcut app and returns to Inkline with existing terminals intact. RightAlt is the Alt/Opt key to the right of the spacebar. Hold it with the separate Opt key; do not hold Ctrl.

Hold Opt+RightAlt+Backspace for two seconds for emergency recovery. This kills the shortcut app and every Inkline terminal, then opens a fresh shell. Unsaved work in those sessions is lost. A program that grabs input exclusively or exhausts the system can defeat recovery; restarting the device is the final fallback.

Complete program shortcut instructions ↗

Keep the manual on your tablet.

The installer includes one PDF manual in nine languages, with a language index. To import it into My files, enable the USB web interface and leave notebooks open during installation. Otherwise, quit Inkline and run ~/inkline manual from SSH after enabling the interface, or import the PDF yourself. The installer never edits notebook metadata directly.

Power button and saved settings

Press and release the physical power button to suspend; press again to wake. Settings save when Inkline exits, not during sleep. An update preserves your open terminals, so quit and reopen Inkline once to activate the new sleep handling. Save your work before testing physical sleep and wake.

Remove older utility releases

After upgrading a utility, preview old releases with ~/inkline cleanup emacs --check, then reclaim them with ~/inkline cleanup emacs. Replace emacs with another utility name if needed. Current and in-use releases are kept; close old programs and retry. Your documents and editor configuration are preserved.

Wi-Fi on the tablet

Settings page 4 shows nearby and saved networks, signal, security, and the current connection. Choose Connect or Forget with touch or keyboard.

inkline-wifi status
inkline-wifi list
inkline-wifi pick
~/inkline wifi list

Passwords are masked and kept out of arguments, logs, and shell history. Enterprise, WEP, and SAE-only networks are shown but are not configured in this preview.

PDF · 9 languages

USB keyboard and typewriter

Install the Python utility, then open Settings → USB (page 3). Choose Network, Send keyboard or Receive keyboard. For outgoing typing, connect the computer over USB-C, choose its profile, and open Typewriter. Live typing edits the local document and sends each character. Pause live edits locally and displays a black PAUSED · USB OUTPUT OFF badge; Exit typewriter returns to USB settings.

Open Files & send to load or save any UTF-8 filename, choose 5–80 characters per second, send the entire editor, or stop. Edits remain in RAM until explicit Save or normal Inkline exit; an untitled document uses a hidden recovery name at exit.

Mac needs Unicode Hex Input; Linux needs a compatible Ctrl+Shift+U input method. Windows needs WinCompose with Right Alt as Compose and Unicode input enabled. Use a US layout and turn Caps Lock off. The US/ASCII profile rejects non-ASCII text; Mac accepts characters through U+FFFF.

Input method offers Off/direct US, Romaji, Pinyin, Zhuyin, Wubi 86 and US-International. Choose Off to return to normal US typing. Only committed characters are sent. Left Alt+Space opens the Unicode picker. Bundled Noto and GNU Unifont fallbacks provide broad glyph coverage.

~/inkline usb send-keyboard
keyboard-send --file notes.txt --profile windows --dry-run
keyboard-send --file notes.txt --profile windows --start-delay 3 --cps 20
keyboard-send --stop
~/inkline usb network

Files stream through a small read buffer, without a fixed size limit or temporary spool files. Ordinary files are fully validated before sending; keep the source unchanged. Pipes are checked as they arrive and may be partially sent before an error. Inspect the receiving document before retrying an interrupted send.

Exit, crash and emergency cleanup restore USB networking. Change modes from the tablet or Wi-Fi SSH; USB SSH cannot disconnect itself. An active satellite PPP session or an unknown gadget keeps ownership of the port. For timed recovery, run ~/inkline usb recover-after 90 before switching.

The PDF manual has complete host setup, commands and recovery instructions in nine languages. Download it here and import it with the reMarkable app if you want it in My files.

texlive-install --check
texlive-install

See the official TeX Live installation guide and Python 3.15.0rc2 release notes. Package sources and licenses are available on the source page.

export PYTHONDONTWRITEBYTECODE=1
export PIP_NO_CACHE_DIR=1

PYTHONDONTWRITEBYTECODE=1 prevents bytecode writes during imports. PIP_NO_CACHE_DIR=1 disables pip’s download and wheel cache. To prevent pip’s separate installation-time bytecode compilation, use python3 -m pip install --no-compile PACKAGE.

Stock Python’s isolated mode ignores Python environment settings, including during the usual virtual-environment pip bootstrap. For a method that skips this bootstrap, certificate setup, and verification commands, read the complete Python guide. Existing caches and application file writes are unaffected.