Being a noob I will try to remember to log everything here for someone else to use for help later...
So far:
- download ubuntu iso from
https://www.ubuntu.com/
- download virtual box from
https://www.virtualbox.org/
- install virtualbox
- create a new vm and select ubuntu, point it at the iso you downloaded.
- use teraterm to figure out which COM port on your PC the USB to TTL uses (COM3 for me)
- go into virtual box VM settings and change the serial port 1 to use COM1 as port number, port mode as host device and path/address as COM3 (us ethe COM port identified as being used by your serial adapter)
- install putty into ubuntu (terminal, sudo apt-get putty)
- modify putty connection to use serial and 115200 as baud rate, setup a log file for later reference
- The serial port should be on /dev/ttyS0 from your Ubuntu (linux) guest
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OK so now I have a Ubuntu guest connected by serial to my kindle pw1...time for some more reading to figure out what next. I have read about fastboot a little but can't find any step by step guide for that at the moment....
p.s. i'm running Ubuntu 18.04.1 LTS in case it matters.