Font, ScreenSaver & USBNetwork Hacks for Kindle 2.x, 3.x & 4.x

[dhdurgee]

Originally Posted by Jeton

You can stream Radio on you Kindle if you install launchpad and Mplayer.
More here: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=119851

I did find that thread and you might note I made a post over there. My problem is that the radio stations I listen to most provide an internet play list as opposed to an internet stream. Mplayer won't deal with this unless passed on the command line with a -playlist flag, so as things are distributed I won't be able to make this go.

What I should be able to do is to add appropriate code to the mplayer control.sh script to support this by downloading the internet play list and then passing that on to mplayer appropriately. Is wget available on the kindle? If so, this shouldn't be too hard. If not, I will need to know what is available to download the play list to a file on the kindle.

Dave

[Jeton]

Originally Posted by dhdurgee

I did find that thread and you might note I made a post over there. My problem is that the radio stations I listen to most provide an internet play list as opposed to an internet stream. Mplayer won't deal with this unless passed on the command line with a -playlist flag, so as things are distributed I won't be able to make this go.

What I should be able to do is to add appropriate code to the mplayer control.sh script to support this by downloading the internet play list and then passing that on to mplayer appropriately. Is wget available on the kindle? If so, this shouldn't be too hard. If not, I will need to know what is available to download the play list to a file on the kindle.

Dave

Could you provide us with a link where those stations are? To see what's the problem?

[NiLuJe]

Update time!

* JailBreak v0.5.N:
* Works on FW 3.1, thanks to yifanlu . But there is a twist. Like I said on the jb thread, it's based on a whitelist of hacks to decide when to switch to our custom key (in order to successfully install a custom hack). You'll find this whitelist in linkjail/etc/whitelist. Right now, I think it covers a whole bunch of hacks, but if for some reason it's missing something (in which case your hack install will fail with a U007 error), here's how to procede:

* Notify me, so I can fix it for everyone .
* Edit the whitelist manually in linkjail/etc/whitelist (the format should be pretty self-explanatory, just make sure it stays with UNIX line endings).
* Alternatively, you can also drop a blank ENABLE_HACK_UPDATES file in the root of your Kindle, like with yifanlu's jailbreak. (As a side-effect, this will make official updates *fail*).

* Fonts V4.3.N:
* Updated FreeType libs (There might be some significant speed/rendering improvements).
* Updated fc-scan binary (fontconfig update)
* Slightly smarter official update 'traps' (it's using the jailbreak whitelist).

* ScreenSavers v0.19.N:
* Updated sort binary (updated coreutils)
* Slightly smarter official update 'traps' (it's using the jailbreak whitelist).

* USBNetwork v0.31.N:
* Updated sftp-server binary (OpenSSH update)
* Updated dropbear binary (dropbear update)
* Updated htop binary (htop update)
* Updated busybox binary (busybox update)
* Updated rsync binary (rsync update)

[Hollow Man]

Originally Posted by NiLuJe

Update time!

* JailBreak v0.5.N:
* Works on FW 3.1, thanks to yifanlu .

Way cool. Question: if we want to try yours, but already have yifanlu's in place, how do you recommend proceeding? Should we uninstall any hacks, then uninstall yifanlu's jailbreak, THEN go ahead and install your jailbreak, THEN install the hacks again?

Thanks again for all the hard work,

-HM

[NiLuJe]

The only requirement for this jailbreak is to make sure you're using amazon's default keys. (Which an uninstall of yifanlu's jailbreak should ensure).

If you have any doubts at all, don't bother, and don't touch your jailbreak. There is no real need to switch your jailbreak hack, it's more a matter of taste, and of ease for new users. (And, if you mess up, you may end up with borked keys, which would be Bad(TM)).

So, yeah, good point, let's make that clear: If you're using yifanlu's jailbreak, don't try to switch unless you know what you're doing.

[Hollow Man]

I hear you and understand. I just figured I'd ask because I can foresee issues on the horizon since there are now two different jailbreaks out there for people to use.

I'd try the uninstall of yifanlu's jailbreak if I knew where to check for Amazon's keys after it completed (to ensure the uninstall executed properly), but that research is probably better left for another day...

-HM

[NiLuJe]

If the update process of the uninstall was successful, then everything should be okay.

[dhdurgee]

Originally Posted by Jeton

Could you provide us with a link where those stations are? To see what's the problem?

http://provisioning.streamtheworld.c.../WMALAMAAC.pls

If you try this as:

mplayer http://provisioning.streamtheworld.c.../WMALAMAAC.pls

it will not play. If you try this as:

mplayer -playlist http://provisioning.streamtheworld.c.../WMALAMAAC.pls

it will work. The problem is that as opposed to many other radio stations this station provides a playlist as opposed to an individual stream. I guess this is for redundancy and load sharing purposes from their standpoint, but mplayer does not recognize this. I have added myself and this to a bugzilla entry for mplayer, but this appears to have been around for many years without being fixed. This is a prime reason I use vlc as opposed to mplayer on my systems, as it recognizes the playlist without problems.

Dave

[twowheels]

Originally Posted by dhdurgee

My son got me a Kindle 3 for Christmas. It is now at the 3.1 software level. I was wondering if it would be possible to run vlc on the kindle to play streaming radio given that it has MP3 support already. If so, what needs to be done to accomplish this?

I was also wondering if it would be possible to use a SIP phone client such as sjphone on my kindle. If so I would of course need a headset for this. Does the kindle include bluetooth support, or would a USB headset work? I assume the headphone jack is just that and does not include support for a microphone.

If you're hoping to somehow use the 3G support for that, please don't! While I don't have a 3G Kindle (mine is WiFi only) I really hate to see people abuse the most awesome and extremely generous offer that Amazon has set up for high bandwidth (read: expensive to Amazon) programs. We've got a good thing going, almost too good to be true, and I'd hate to see it killed by abuse!

[twowheels]

Originally Posted by NiLuJe

Update time!

Wah... I told myself to wait to upgrade to 3.1 for a while longer, but I got antsy and did it last week... now I feel like I should go back and reinstall the SS hack and jailbreak... :-(

[dhdurgee]

Originally Posted by twowheels

If you're hoping to somehow use the 3G support for that, please don't! While I don't have a 3G Kindle (mine is WiFi only) I really hate to see people abuse the most awesome and extremely generous offer that Amazon has set up for high bandwidth (read: expensive to Amazon) programs. We've got a good thing going, almost too good to be true, and I'd hate to see it killed by abuse!

Nope, I have a WiFi as well. I was thinking it would be handy to be able to use the kindle as an alternative to a cell phone when I was at a hot spot. But as there appears to be no way to attach a headset to the kindle via bluetooth, USB or jack this could only be done as a speakerphone type arrangement. That somewhat reduces the attractiveness of the entire idea.

Taking a look at the state of things now it might have been better had my son purchased a tablet as opposed to the kindle, as there are now tablets to be had for $140 as well. That would be a more flexible platform than the kindle for other applications.

Dave

[Hollow Man]

Originally Posted by twowheels

Wah... I told myself to wait to upgrade to 3.1 for a while longer, but I got antsy and did it last week... now I feel like I should go back and reinstall the SS hack and jailbreak... :-(

Did you install the 3.1 jailbreak from last week? Sounds like either jailbreak is giving the same results, so if so, no real need to change unless you simply feel the nerdy need to.

-HM

[Jeton]

Originally Posted by dhdurgee

http://provisioning.streamtheworld.c.../WMALAMAAC.pls

If you try this as:

mplayer http://provisioning.streamtheworld.c.../WMALAMAAC.pls

it will not play. If you try this as:

mplayer -playlist http://provisioning.streamtheworld.c.../WMALAMAAC.pls

it will work. The problem is that as opposed to many other radio stations this station provides a playlist as opposed to an individual stream. I guess this is for redundancy and load sharing purposes from their standpoint, but mplayer does not recognize this. I have added myself and this to a bugzilla entry for mplayer, but this appears to have been around for many years without being fixed. This is a prime reason I use vlc as opposed to mplayer on my systems, as it recognizes the playlist without problems.
Dave

On the Kindle Mplayer you could add the direct streams in the playlist. When you open them in VLC, you can copy the original link.
Here's what I got:
http://4293.live.streamtheworld.com:3690/WMALAMAACCMP3
http://4293.live.streamtheworld.com:443/WMALAMAACCMP3
etc..

These will open on the Kindle.
Getting a bit off topic here with this tough...

[montalex]

I am on Kindle 2, and my set up was fine, with jailbreak, font and screensaver hacks, and Duokan installed. I decided to remove all of this, and update with NiLuJe's latest work. So I removed Duokan, then all hacks and jailbreak. Then I used NiLuJe's new jailbreak, installed screensavers hack, then installed the latest Duokan, then installed NiLuJe's latest font hack, then added Georia 2 fonts. Everything went perfectly.

It seems important, if one plans on using Duokan, to install the font hacks after installing Duokan. Installing Duokan after the fonts hack seems to cause problems (not serious ones, but it seems to interfere with the font hack).

So, if Amazon decides to update Kindle 2 firmware, I'm ready.

Thanks, NiLuJe!

Edit: Actually, I didn't have a font selection until I went back and reinstalled an older version of Duokan -- don't know why. But installed after the most recent font hack worked perfectly. So it seems I am wrong about the installation order, at least with the latest hacks.

[dhdurgee]

Originally Posted by Jeton

On the Kindle Mplayer you could add the direct streams in the playlist. When you open them in VLC, you can copy the original link.
Here's what I got:
http://4293.live.streamtheworld.com:3690/WMALAMAACCMP3
http://4293.live.streamtheworld.com:443/WMALAMAACCMP3
etc..

These will open on the Kindle.
Getting a bit off topic here with this tough...

I am not surprised that the contents of the playlist will open on the kindle. The problem is that from what I have seen these are generated dynamically and thus it isn't safe to assume that a stream that worked yesterday will work today or tomorrow. So as best I can tell I have to use the URL to the playlist to be sure of the stream working.

You are correct about this getting off-topic. I have posted about this in the mplayer thread, but nobody has picked up the ball over there yet.

As I noted in an earlier message, this should be workable provided I change the control.sh script to obtain the playlist and then start playing it. If anyone can tell me if wget is available in the kindle or what tool is available to download the internet file that would help.

I have yet to jailbreak my kindle. Is the v0.5.N version the one to go with at this point?

Dave