MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - Which hacks for a Kindle DX with a 3.2.1 firmware?

newman · 08-10-2015, 07:49 AM

I managed to update Kindle DX which had YifanLu's 3.2.1 franken-firmware to 3.4.2.

I followed the official update path: 3.2.1→3.3→3.4→3.4.2. The thing is that 3.4 is a huge update (3.3 and 3.4.2 are not) and there are several ways the update breaks, the major one being that some operations in the upgrade script will fail due to DX having only 128 MB of RAM (K3 has 256 MB), and you will have to find a way around it.

What are the pros of 3.4.2 compared to 3.2?

Dunno... HTTPS sites work in experimental browser because TLS 1.1 is enabled, and that's what I was hoping for.
You will learn a lot about DX internals and packaging mechanisms.
It was fun.

What are the cons?

You will probably brick your Kindle, unless you are tech-savvy, and, more importantly, lucky as I was.

(Sorry for speaking in riddles and not being specific enough, trying not to violate MR Guidelines.)

--

Looking at NetSurf (framebuffer version) it does not seem to require much less memory that Kindle's experimental WebKit browser. Each require about 60 MB of memory but pages rendered by WebKit look way better, plus it supports javascript; though NetSurf may render more swiftly.

08-10-2015, 07:49 AM	#21
newman homo viator Posts: 78 Karma: 252594 Join Date: May 2010 Device: Kindle DXi with 3.4.2 firmware, Kobo Glo HD	I managed to update Kindle DX which had YifanLu's 3.2.1 franken-firmware to 3.4.2. I followed the official update path: 3.2.1→3.3→3.4→3.4.2. The thing is that 3.4 is a huge update (3.3 and 3.4.2 are not) and there are several ways the update breaks, the major one being that some operations in the upgrade script will fail due to DX having only 128 MB of RAM (K3 has 256 MB), and you will have to find a way around it. What are the pros of 3.4.2 compared to 3.2? Dunno... HTTPS sites work in experimental browser because TLS 1.1 is enabled, and that's what I was hoping for. You will learn a lot about DX internals and packaging mechanisms. It was fun. What are the cons? You will probably brick your Kindle, unless you are tech-savvy, and, more importantly, lucky as I was. (Sorry for speaking in riddles and not being specific enough, trying not to violate MR Guidelines.) -- Looking at NetSurf (framebuffer version) it does not seem to require much less memory that Kindle's experimental WebKit browser. Each require about 60 MB of memory but pages rendered by WebKit look way better, plus it supports javascript; though NetSurf may render more swiftly. Last edited by newman; 08-10-2015 at 07:53 AM.