Kindle Firmware Compendium

[LostOnTheLine]

I've been trying to find information on Firmware for Kindles...

It's been a battle finding the information, & there's still a lot I'd like to add, but I started making a Google Sheet that has a Table with all the Firmwares & a list of notes about them.

The specific things I've been collecting are things like

• What Jailbreak Options Work On It
• What Models have that version
• What New Features were introduced with it
• What problems have been noted for it
• Links to articles discussing it

The Intent of my search is to determine the best Firmware for the Jailbreaks of the Kindles I have. But it's a lot of work & hard to find, especially things like "Which Firmware changed the Home Screen to the new format that I dislike" & "Which Firmware took away the ability to have Collections in the Library that stay at the top & show books even if they are Read while the main Library does not"

So as I've been collecting this data I've had it in a few places, 1st a OneNote Document with the information. That was hard to sift through so I created a Google Doc with collapsible Headings for each Firmware. That was much better, but not ideal. Then I have my new one, which I feel is (at least so far) the best, A Table.

Now I would like to make that Table editable by anyone who is more active here & will keep it updated better than I will, while allowing anyone to comment on it, & I, or they, can incorporate the comments when they have been verified.


As of now I'm including links to the Firmwares, but so far that is just for the current Newest Firmwares & I probably will also do that for the Last Jailbreakable ones as well.

Any other suggestions would be greatly appreciated & I'll try to incorporate everything that I reasonably can.

Any things I should consider aside from that?

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?usp=sharing

[j.p.s]

Thanks!

I've been wishing for something like this for years.

Did you consider putting in a mobileread wiki page?

[LostOnTheLine]

Originally Posted by j.p.s

Thanks!

I've been wishing for something like this for years.

Did you consider putting in a mobileread wiki page?

I'm not exactly sure how I'd do that. I put it here more so others can comment to add information that I don't have because I can't find things. If a more contributing member here wants to either copy mine & make an official one or be added as an editor it would do well there, but if it's just me unfortunately I'll not be great about updating because my fingers are all sticky from being in so many pies.

[LostOnTheLine]

Originally Posted by j.p.s

Did you consider putting in a mobileread wiki page?

So I was just looking into the Wiki because I realized being a wiki it should be community editable, but I'm not sure where to put it, how to start it, & things like that.
If you could tell me where to put it I'll look at how well it will work & try to migrate it over from G-Sheets

[j.p.s]

I've never had much luck navigating the wiki, but I have some suggestions for placing you page. First note that you do not automatically have a wiki account with a forum accout. But anyone can register a wiki acoount. I think I use the same username on both.

I suggest the page
https://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/Kindle_Firmware
or
https://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/Kin...are_Compendium

Neither of these exist, but clicking on them brings up an opportunity to create and edit it.

I would then make a link to your page at:
https://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/Category:Kindle

There is no harm in starting with a stub, gradually expand it while experimenting with layout, restarting from scratch if necessary.

[LostOnTheLine]

Originally Posted by j.p.s

I suggest the page
https://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/Kindle_Firmware


There is no harm in starting with a stub, gradually expand it while experimenting with layout, restarting from scratch if necessary.

So I started it....But I'm seeing neither a way to import a file or a format I could try to convert to... Do you know what Markup language it's in? I don't recognize it at all & It looks like it will be super tedious to manually type it all in in that markup format So I definitely need to convert from a more friendly editable format

[j.p.s]

I think that it is in markdown, but can't find anywhere that is stated.
Try reading
https://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/Wiki
and
https://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/Help:Contents

pandoc might be good for conversion

[LostOnTheLine]

Originally Posted by j.p.s

I think that it is in markdown, but can't find anywhere that is stated.

There are a few different Markdown formats, I only know a couple of them, & not extensively, but it's different from the ones I do know.

They say

Basic wiki markup is so easy that you have no excuse not to use it. It's pretty similar to what you use in text-only email.

But as far as I can find there is no "Basic Wiki Markup" language, it isn't the same one that Wikipedia uses, you can tell that just by creating a table as it uses " !! " & " || " between cells which is essentially what Wikipedia uses except doubled.

According to PanDoc it can convert the following markup languages

Wiki markup formats
↔︎ MediaWiki markup
↔︎ DokuWiki markup
← TikiWiki markup
← TWiki markup
← Vimwiki markup
→ XWiki markup
→ ZimWiki markup
↔︎ Jira wiki markup
← Creole

But that's a lot to sort through to make it editable, & even if I think I found the right one because it matches up, I won't know that it's not just a similar one until I run into something that is different. As of now I've been experimenting with the formatting & I think I have a decent template to work off of & just do it manually

EDIT: Looking more into PanDac it doesn't support non-text formats like tables, the closest it can do is CVS which looses all the links, as well as adds a bunch of bloated content (mostly a hundred or more extra spaces). It looks like MediaWiki is the closest, but not exact & it has the least amount of added bloat

[j.p.s]

I'm very sorry to learn of all that.

I have very little experience with markdown, partly because I stumbled across asciidoc first and partly because I'm put off that there are "several versions and no standard". I'm disappointed to now learn that there are at least eight versions Wki markup.

I'm also put off by the attitude that it it so easy that no documentation or tutorials are needed.

Maybe someday I'll try to port your work to a mobileread wiki page. I've wanted something like you are putting together for a long time.

[LostOnTheLine]

Originally Posted by j.p.s

I have very little experience with markdown, partly because I stumbled across asciidoc first and partly because I'm put off that there are "several versions and no standard". I'm disappointed to now learn that there are at least eight versions Wki markup.

I'm also put off by the attitude that it it so easy that no documentation or tutorials are needed.

Yeah, I personally like the Markdown language used by github. It's the same or at least nearly so, as the one used on StackOverflow & most all of its' derivatives, many Forum communities like Plex use it, & it has more customization options than these do. Though I will note that I'm not sure if you can add colors to cells in tables, which I managed to do here.

Originally Posted by j.p.s

Maybe someday I'll try to port your work to a mobileread wiki page. I've wanted something like you are putting together for a long time.

I've been integrating it, but it's like 5× the amount of effort making the Google Sheet was. Plus colors have to be manually assigned instead of being set with conditional formatting.
I've also tried manipulating the format as much as I could to make it easier for others to add to & maintain a consistent format

[LostOnTheLine]

I added a 2nd Sheet to the Google Doc with all the links to the different Firmware auto-generated. I was trying to find a way to have it check if the links are valid & then include the valid ones in the table... But It's not working how I was expecting it so I'm giving up for the moment. Regardless, If you go onto the table you should at least be able to click a firmware that's on the list & see if there's one to download for that Device
I'll eventually, most likely, manually use that table to add the ones each Firmware supports to the Wiki, but for now It's just a guessing click sheet

[j.p.s]

The direct links to old firmware already make what you have got so far extremely valuable. I hope other people pitch in to help fill any gaps for that and other fields.

[LostOnTheLine]

Originally Posted by j.p.s

The direct links to old firmware already make what you have got so far extremely valuable. I hope other people pitch in to help fill any gaps for that and other fields.

The hardest thing is knowing what model has each Firmware & what Firmware versions there are. A lot of the Firmwares on the list are ones I've seen mentioned somewhere. But once you know the firmware numbers it's pretty easy as each model has a format for their links, like PW (10)

https://s3.amazonaws.com/firmwaredownloads/update_kindle_all_new_paperwhite_v2_

or PW (7)

https://s3.amazonaws.com/firmwaredownloads/update_kindle_all_new_paperwhite_

or Voyage (7)

https://s3.amazonaws.com/firmwaredownloads/update_kindle_voyage_

then the firmware number e.g.

5.14.2

then

.bin

Once you know the format it's just testing the particular link to see if there's a file with that name or not. So instead of manually typing them I just made the sheet spit out a link using the version numbers & the base link. In all reality the harder part is figuring out which devices each Firmware supports. Just the table I auto-generated has over 800 links, & that's just for the Firmware I already have on the list. If people have to manually build the links for the firmware they want that's not too hard, but figuring out which ones are an option for each particular model? That's much harder, & one of the main reasons I started collecting the information to begin with

[jhowell]

Amazon’s Source Code Notice for Kindle E-Readers and Fire Tablets page lists the firmware versions that were produced for each Kindle model.

[LostOnTheLine]

Originally Posted by jhowell

Amazon’s Source Code Notice for Kindle E-Readers and Fire Tablets page lists the firmware versions that were produced for each Kindle model.

Sweet. Thanks. That's perfect. With that I can much more easily complete the basics of the table, then it'll just be up to people to update them when new Firmware comes out & the big task of finding all the release notes, changes, links, etc... Okay, still a lot of work, but that helps a TON