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iKindles
iJanuary 13th, 2018
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i
iI was researching Raspberry Pis as a potential off-grid computer
ihook-up. I wanted a wifi enabled, solar powered, ruggedized
isystem. Preferrably it would have a local keyboard and display,
ibut a model that I could only access over local wifi would be
isufficient. Seriously air-gapped, like in-the-woods, style. That'd
ibe neat.
i
iAnyway, I got sidetracked when I saw someone using a Kindle as
ia display for their pi. I had the first generation Kindle and
iI jailbroke it and was able to get a shell running at one time. It
iwas neat, but pretty useless. The new ones, like my Kindle Voyage,
ihave a much better display and faster refresh. It's actually
iuseful as a terminal.
i
iSo I went looking down that rabbit hole. I documented my process
i[0] but I wasn't able to get it working with the research I did so
ifar. My Voyage is running a firmware that's too far upgraded to
iwork with the published tricks. I've got a Kindle Touch downstairs
ithat's not in use which I might try instead. I'll keep an eye out
ifor new rooting methods too.
i
iI don't even care about the Pi part anymore. I just want to have
ia Kindle as a terminal screen. That will be fantastic!
iEDIT:
iI've switched to my Kindle Touch and we're getting progress. The
ijailbreak was easy but I struggled for a bit getting networking
iworking properly. There's again 7,000 versions of advice for
iconfiguring this thing online, but I didn't find the key info
iuntil reading a readme inside a zip. The Kindle's system mounts
iread-only and the root password is jibberish by default. To get
ilogged in, I had to set up an authorized key. With that done it
iwas just a matter of connecting. I did get both USB networking
iand Wifi working. In the end, Wifi was way easier.
iI'll document all this new effort in the explorations notes, and
iI'll continue to share as features are added. Next up: app
ilaunchers.
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