ideas for Kindle Touch

[ixtab]

Originally Posted by geekmaster

You should be able use "dd" to write to the kernel that is not being used, AFAIK. Write diags kernel from main, or main kernel from diags. I have not tried it though, so YMMV.

I think it's entirely possible to overwrite the main kernel while running in main. In fact, it's exactly what the 5.1.0 update script does (twice!), and all of that while running in main. Just unpack the update.bin and look inside. It's all neatly documented.

It also makes sense: Since the kernel is loaded in main memory, there is no reason why its "disk location" couldn't be overwritten while it's loaded. Of course, this is not the case for the main partition.

So yes, cscat's idea is absolutely feasible. You simply need some kind of automatism to boot inside diags (touch ENABLE_DIAGS), then to automatically execute some kind of custom script inside diags (which would run dd and then reboot to main). The latter might even be feasible with a carefully crafted data.tar.gz for diags, but I guess it's easier to modify the diags partition to automatically launch some script.

No rocket science at all. cscat, go ahead and write it!

Edit: it might even be possible to do it entirely from main, in an update script along the lines of

zcat kernel.img.gz | dd of=/dev/mmcblk0 seek=xxx bs=4K
zcat main.img.gz | dd of=/dev/mmcblk0p1 bs=4K

The rationale why the second line *might* work is that / is mounted ro anyway, so in principle nothing should attempt to write to the partition. And zcat and dd would already be loaded in memory at the time of execution. I may be terribly wrong though, so don't even attempt this unless you are sure that you can debrick the device

[thatworkshop]

Once I get a Touch shipped here for my girlfriend, I'll use hers as a Guinea pig as I don't yet have courage to mess up with my one and only Katie (Oh, now I see I have 2, my gf's name's Katie too! ) Oh man, we'll have 3 Katies in a household... I'll go crazy for sure.

But I'll do it, unless someone who has extra KT does it quicker in the mean time.

@ixtab: good eyes man! I saw it flashed kernel twice but it didn't notice at that time until you said now.

EDITed after seeing ixtab's edits... Well, I'm on good days now and want to actually read stuff, promised not to mess around too much (we'll see! ), as I'm a bit tired of debricking this little fellow all the time! I don't know what I'd have done without geekmaster contributions (and yours and many more here)! Inner peace (and chaos) be with you all.

[knc1]

Originally Posted by ixtab

Edit: it might even be possible to do it entirely from main, in an update script along the lines of

zcat kernel.img.gz | dd of=/dev/mmcblk0 seek=xxx bs=4K
zcat main.img.gz | dd of=/dev/mmcblk0p1 bs=4K

The rationale why the second line *might* work is that / is mounted ro anyway, so in principle nothing should attempt to write to the partition. And zcat and dd would already be loaded in memory at the time of execution. I may be terribly wrong though, so don't even attempt this unless you are sure that you can debrick the device

Second line NO
That is writing to the device which is the backing store of a file system.

The VFS (virtual file system) layer of Linux has large portions of the file system and file system metadata in memory - - which represents what WAS on the storage media under the file system.

The physical location of file inode 14xyz23 which might have been the start of an executable **before** the underlying content was changed might be anything **after** the change, heck, it might not even be an inode afterward.

There are only two choices:
Un-mount the file system before changing the backing store ; or,
Make all changes through the file system.

[geekmaster]

Originally Posted by ixtab

...
Edit: it might even be possible to do it entirely from main, in an update script along the lines of

zcat kernel.img.gz | dd of=/dev/mmcblk0 seek=xxx bs=4K
zcat main.img.gz | dd of=/dev/mmcblk0p1 bs=4K

The rationale why the second line *might* work is that / is mounted ro anyway, so in principle nothing should attempt to write to the partition. And zcat and dd would already be loaded in memory at the time of execution. I may be terribly wrong though, so don't even attempt this unless you are sure that you can debrick the device

Except that various scripts have "mntroot rw" and "mntroot ro" embedded in them and they DO write to root. I had gotten bad backup images when copying FROM the root that I had booted, so I play it safe and only backup (or restore) the root that is not running. That is WHY we write mmcblk0p1 from diags_ssh, to prevent such (intermittent) problems. Of course, it could be dependent on firmware version and what scripts run at what times.

[jib]

24 - Wikipedia instead of dictionary

I mean being able to set default action to highlighting a word being looking up that word in Wikipedia instead of the dictionary

[thatworkshop]

25. Sindbad2Kindle (Send2Kindle with KF8 Support):

As far as I know the existing online services for sending to Kindle (bookmarklet or plugin), convert pages to Mobi format not KF8. This works fine for Latin languages but for RTL languages (Persian/Hebrew/Arabic/who else is out there?! ) this is not a good news, because the result is a alphabet-by-alphabet separated text that users still have to read from left to right to 'decipher'. We have to run up a service to tap into this KF8/AZW3 opportunity.

Spoiler:

Also bear in mind this is useful even for Latin pages that have KF8ish features but they're lost in conversion used by current services.

My naïve solution for now (Windows user): Calibre HTML to AZW3 converter
Also, printing pages to PDF works well but I don't like it.
1. Save the attached batch file on desktop.
2. change variable calibreFolder in this batch file to your Calibre folder (where ebook-convert.exe is located)
3. Save webpage as html (preferably on desktop)
4. drag html file on this batch file.
5. transfer the result AZW3 file (which is created on desktop) to your Kindle.

A bit of chit-chat:

Spoiler:

Well good news is that some linguists are working to devise a better system to represent Persian language, as it was LTR in the past (by past I mean 600 BC) and not connected (it's host to numerous issues)... Well, many more important changes and stuff happening there that I guess dealing with and solving linguistic issues aren't priority right now.

I'm really looking forward for a day that Persian language resigns from using Perso-Arabic alphabet [which is breathtakingly gorgeous (look up Persian calligraphy, example >>zoom in<<) but ambiguous]

[knc1]

Urdu . .

[aranwe]

26. Disable the "only mobi, azw, txt" download restriction in browser
it would be great to be able to download lets say PDFs (a lot of my school materials is in pdf and i cant download them via kindle :/) ...
though this one will be kinda tricky since the webkit browser is compiled ... though i believe this part of the code should be open source .... so it might be possible to compile only webkit ... and switch the binary / library where is this function located ... any ideas?

[jib]

aranwe
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=121008

(added later) As pointed out by cscat in a pm, this does not work on Touch.

[thatworkshop]

27. VNC/RDP over USB
instead of WiFi
EDIT: this idea is similar to and in pursue of idea 19.

todo

[techiemonkey]

This one couldnt be possible. Having internet access of pc through usb as some people dont want to go through the hassles of buying and setting up the router. if this isnt possible then make kindle compatible with connectify or virtual router as it gives an error on connecting to them but it connects to secure networks (provided i have a password! )

[geekmaster]

Originally Posted by techiemonkey

This one couldnt be possible. Having internet access of pc through usb as some people dont want to go through the hassles of buying and setting up the router. if this isnt possible then make kindle compatible with connectify or virtual router as it gives an error on connecting to them but it connects to secure networks (provided i have a password! )

Few things are or remain "not possible". Technology often does what was once considered impossible.

It sounds like you are suggesting using the kindle as a USB modem for the host PC. This is called "tethering", and could be abused if your kindle has a 3G modem.

We are not allowed to discuss details about how to do kindle tethering such as this at the MobileRead forums.

[techiemonkey]

@geekmaster nope I meant exactly the opposite I.e the pc as a modem for the kindle. Or is there a way to connect kindle to virtual routers like connectify.

[ixtab]

Originally Posted by techiemonkey

@geekmaster nope I meant exactly the opposite I.e the pc as a modem for the kindle. Or is there a way to connect kindle to virtual routers like connectify.

No problem at all. Just have the PC act as a gateway, and set the correct default route and nameserver address on the Kindle.

All of this is pretty standard networking stuff, and there are tons of HOWTOs and descriptions on the web.

[techiemonkey]

@ixtab little confusing but will eventually figure it out. Thanks, I didn't think this was actually possible, hope I don't need a router for it.