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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. | |
[0] Kindle Explorations |