Showcase of my rooted Kindle running Arch Linux

[programagor]

Greetings fellow humans and other lifeforms of the internet.
Recently I have rooted my Kindle Paperwhite 2 thanks to this forum, and made it run Arch Linux with full desktop environment. This video shows details:
Linux on Kindle demonstration - YouTube

Here is a picture album:
Amazon Kindle Paperwhite 2 rooted and made to run linux - Album on Imgur

[loco]

nice. congrats on the achievement. how did u do it?

[eschwartz]

Well, I assume he ran a chroot of ArchLinuxARM stored on a loop-mounted image in the userstore.

Then you just start an X server after killing lab126_gui. Or displaying applications on the default DISPLAY.


This guy did it too: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...ght=arch+linux
But other people have done the same with debian armel.

...

Aside from the inherent coolness of running Arch on my Kindle (it is already on this laptop), there isn't much point.
Really, I prefer using my Kindle to read books.

[programagor]

I didn't actually kill the lab126 GUI, I started Xephyr to run the new X in a "window" on top of the lab126 GUI. Otherwise all is correct.

The mounting scripts are as follows:

xep.sh (started by KUAL):

#!/bin/sh
ARCH=/mnt/base-us/extensions/arch
bash $ARCH/arch.sh /start-xep.sh

arch.sh (invoked by xep.sh):

#!/bin/sh
ARCH=/mnt/base-us/extensions/arch
killall Xephyr
bash $ARCH/mount.sh
bash $ARCH/mount_aux.sh
chroot $ARCH/os/ /bin/bash $@
killall Xephyr
bash $ARCH/umount.sh
sleep 1
bash $ARCH/umount.sh

mount.sh (first mounting script invoked by arch.sh):

#!/bin/sh
ARCH=/mnt/base-us/extensions/arch
rm /dev/loop/arch #just in case
mknod -m0660 /dev/loop/arch b 7 250
losetup -d /dev/loop/arch
mount -o loop=/dev/loop/arch,noatime -t ext3 $ARCH/arch.img $ARCH/os/

mount_aux.sh (second mounting script invoked by arch.sh):

#!/bin/sh
ARCH=/mnt/base-us/extensions/arch
mount -o bind /dev $ARCH/os/dev
mount -o bind /proc $ARCH/os/proc
mount -o bind / $ARCH/os/host
mount /dev/loop/0 $ARCH/os/mnt/us

start_xep.sh: (called from within the chroot environment)

#!/bin/bash
export DISPLAY=:0
Xephyr :1 -title "L:A_N:application_ID:xephyr" -screen 758x987 -cc 4 -nocursor &
sleep 1
export DISPLAY=:1
#/etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc.d/30-dbus start &
xfwm4 --display=:1 &
xfce4-panel &
xfdesktop &
sleep 8
xvkbd -geometry 758x350+0-350
#/etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc.d/30-dbus stop
killall Xephyr

umount.sh (unmounting script invoked by arch.sh):

#!/bin/sh
ARCH=/mnt/base-us/extensions/arch
umount $ARCH/os/mnt/us
umount $ARCH/os/host
umount $ARCH/os/proc
umount $ARCH/os/dev
sleep 1
umount -d $ARCH/os/
rm /dev/loop/arch

[eschwartz]

Well, Xephyr works too. I did notice you had the Kindle's statusbar lurking on the top.


EDIT: And I see you found the [CODE][/CODE]* tags. I was about to suggest them.


* -- rendered literal through the (now recursive) power of [NOPARSE][/NOPARSE]

[knc1]

The more ambitious way to do it:
http://wiki.osdev.org/Creating_an_Operating_System

[programagor]

Originally Posted by knc1

The more ambitious way to do it:
http://wiki.osdev.org/Creating_an_Operating_System

Well of course creating my own OS from scratch is the next logical step on my checklist, but I didn't get to that just yet.

[knc1]

Originally Posted by programagor

Well of course creating my own OS from scratch is the next logical step on my checklist, but I didn't get to that just yet.

Why not?
Linus Torvalds is having pretty good luck with his OS project.