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Old 12-22-2012, 12:23 PM   #1
joblack
Wizard
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Posts: 1,750
Karma: 4382688
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: Somewhere on earth
Device: Onyx Boox Tab X
Get rid of Kindle Paperwhite's backlight

If you're like me you like the higher resolution of the Kindle Paperwhite but hate that it isn't possible to turn the backlight off. The hint to the system device name came from another forum user so thanks for it.

What do you need?

- Jailbroken Kindle Paperwhite (check the other howtos in this forum section)
- Installed USB Network Hack
- USB cable
- Putty (or any other ssh client)
- Linux (or Windows with USBNet driver)
- Make sure you know a little bit about Linux command so you won't accidentally delete your Kindle root partition. And of course no guarantee from my side.
  1. SSH to your Kindle PW
  2. mntroot rw
  3. vi /etc/crontab/root
  4. press i to go into the insert mode
  5. add the following lines to the file
    Code:
    # get rid of the nerve ranking backlight
    * * * * * /bin/echo -n 0 > /sys/devices/system/fl_tps6116x/fl_tps6116x0/fl_intensity
  6. save the file (with :x)
  7. mntroot ro

Reboot the device. That's it. After most after a minute uptime your backlight is off. If you enabled it again (woke the Kindle up?) you just need to wait another 60 seconds (you can already use the Kindle PW - it will be disabled).

I haven't found a way to include this in the GUI or change the default values for the backlight. Maybe somebody has an idea where to find it (I suspect it's hidden somewhere in the JAR files).

The disadvantages of this 'quick and dirty' approach is that you can't enable the lighting again without changing the cron file and maybe your Kindle needs a little bit more energy.

Last edited by joblack; 12-22-2012 at 01:02 PM.
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