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Running a full desktop environment on a Kindle (2019)

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Re: Running a full desktop environment on a Kindle (2019)

#21

Post by Tijdreiziger »

vlunkr wrote: post #20
tppiotrowski wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Kindle also comes with an "Experimental Browser". [1] I've used it on an old Kindle to read the news, craigslist. I'm not sure if it supports JS. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Q7eHUI6rSo

It's been probably a couple of years, but I tried to load HN in it once and it was unreadable, so I don't think it's too great.

I read HN on my Kindle's browser fairly regularly. HN itself (and similar pages with a simple layout, such as i.reddit.com) works great. For the articles that are linked, it's a coin flip whether it works or the page has so much cruft that it crashes the browser.

Re: Running a full desktop environment on a Kindle (2019)

#24

Post by ianai »

andrepd wrote: post #13
FreakyT wrote: post #4

This is great! I've always wanted more hackable e-ink devices -- the Kindle is nice but it feels like there's so much unrealized potential of an e-ink screen.

The reMarkable is a pretty hackable eink device.

I’ve read it’s basically a Linux box with an ssh server. Not read about running a DE/wm on it though.

Re: Running a full desktop environment on a Kindle (2019)

#25

Post by gh02t »

simonmales wrote: post #18
FreakyT wrote: post #4

This is great! I've always wanted more hackable e-ink devices -- the Kindle is nice but it feels like there's so much unrealized potential of an e-ink screen.

First I heard of Kindles having Linux installed on them, I'm too excited by hackable e-ink device. Seems like Kindles will have more legs than a dated iDevice. I've never owned a Kindle, are they priced below their pure hardware cost? If so they suddenly become very tempting. I don't know what I'm looking at but it looks like the current generation is around 50 Euros.

There's been a whole ecosystem of homebrew Kindle software on and off for a while, some of which add some nice functionality like a better PDF reader. Not sure about current status of efforts, but I played around with it a few years ago and it was reasonably lively back then.

Amazon offers a "subsidized" version with some minimal ads that is $20 cheaper, that suggests to me that they are selling it at cost or at least near it. Incidentally, I kinda like the ads... they aren't intrusive (to me at least) and they have actually have given me some decent recommendations before.

Re: Running a full desktop environment on a Kindle (2019)

#26

Post by pro_zac »

tppiotrowski wrote: post #14
TylerE wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty limited. The cellular connection only connects to amazon.com and Wikipedia

The Kindle also comes with an "Experimental Browser". [1] I've used it on an old Kindle to read the news, craigslist. I'm not sure if it supports JS. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Q7eHUI6rSo

I once drove 10 hours to visit a friend but my phone was dead on arrival. I had his address but no apartment number. I used the Kindle experimental browser to message him on facebook.

Re: Running a full desktop environment on a Kindle (2019)

#27

Post by powersnail »

gh02t wrote: post #25
simonmales wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First I heard of Kindles having Linux installed on them, I'm too excited by hackable e-ink device. Seems like Kindles will have more legs than a dated iDevice. I've never owned a Kindle, are they priced below their pure hardware cost? If so they suddenly become very tempting. I don't know what I'm looking at but it looks like the current generation is around 50 Euros.

There's been a whole ecosystem of homebrew Kindle software on and off for a while, some of which add some nice functionality like a better PDF reader. Not sure about current status of efforts, but I played around with it a few years ago and it was reasonably lively back then. Amazon offers a "subsidized" version with some minimal ads that is $20 cheaper, that suggests to me that they are selling it at cost or at leas…

Keep the ads! At least they are book covers. The non-ad version has horrible lock screen images.

Re: Running a full desktop environment on a Kindle (2019)

#28

Post by skykooler »

vlunkr wrote: post #20
tppiotrowski wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Kindle also comes with an "Experimental Browser". [1] I've used it on an old Kindle to read the news, craigslist. I'm not sure if it supports JS. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Q7eHUI6rSo

It's been probably a couple of years, but I tried to load HN in it once and it was unreadable, so I don't think it's too great.

I used to use the built-in browser to load Google Voice and Google Talk and they worked fine. Of course, this was before they were overhauled into bloated, JS-heavy pages that barely run on non-Chrome mobile browsers.

Re: Running a full desktop environment on a Kindle (2019)

#29

Post by crooked-v »

andrepd wrote: post #13
FreakyT wrote: post #4

This is great! I've always wanted more hackable e-ink devices -- the Kindle is nice but it feels like there's so much unrealized potential of an e-ink screen.

The reMarkable is a pretty hackable eink device.

It suffers a lot from the low storage, which is enough to keep me from wanting one even as a consumer device, let alone to hack on it.
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