update 2022:

build a Kindle like eBook reader 🙂 with this Display 🙂 (raspberry compatible)

https://e-radionica.com/en/inkplate-6.html (that is the 6″ inch display)

there is also a 10″ inch display https://e-radionica.com/en/blog/inkplate-10-crowdfunding-campaign-is-now-live/

https://www.crowdsupply.com/e-radionica/inkplate-6plus

by TAVU Limited Liability Company for the Design and Development of Electronic Boards, Reisnerova ulica 100, 31000 Osijek, Croatia

to protect users’s privacy: NEVER GIVE IT WIFI PASSWORD!

it seems to be a little contradicting – use gnu linux – use open source to protect privacy – then buy a kindle X-D

(to the author’s defense: it was intended to be used as a test device for a workshop called “how to create ebooks with open source”)

workaround: never ever give it wifi password

alternative: Tolino eBook reader https://mytolino.com/

just upload pdf via usb cable and user should be “good” – no internet connection needed ever (if Amazon reads this, they surely will ship new devices with a “need to be permanent online or will not be usable” kind of mechanism. #evil

2009: Amazon Erases Orwell Books From Kindle https://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/technology/companies/18amazon.html

NO JOKE: 2009: Amazon Erases Orwell Books From Kindle https://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/technology/companies/18amazon.html

The Kindle Paperwhite DP75SDI is a genious book reader

pros:

  • It’s screen is not as glaring bright as a smart phone and thus kind to the eyes
  • the battery lasts basically “forever” and with forever is ~3 months depending on usage – which is largely attributed to the monochrome screen that turns off automatically when you close the cover. btw: there is no OFF switch. which is Orwellian 1984 kind of scary.
  • when PC connected it behaves like an USB stick thus allowing any pdf and mobi files to be copied on it
  • integrates well with gnu linux (plug into usb behaves like flashdrive)
  • very power efficient reader
  • supports format: .pdf, .mobi and .azw
  • comes with a protective case pre installed when cover is closed, kindle automatically goes into standby SMORT!
  • reading ebooks avoids needless use of paper (made from trees), but if the user really loves a book, buy it on paper 🙂

cons:

  • it is of course a spying device, reporting how many seconds the user spend on what page of what book
    • thus there is no “shutdown” there is only “reboot”
    • the only way it is off, is when the battery is completely empty or removed
  • Wifi can not be disabled (there is airplane mode)
  • like Alexa, it’s a spying machine (newer kindles seem to have a microphone installed (this 2013 version imho not) wtf Amazon do you want to spay on every noise a user makes? X-D)
    • a bet: future kindles even will have a front camera – so 1984 can trying to analyze what line the user is currently reading and what facial expression this triggers (to manipulate even more #evil)
  • epub unsupported 🙁 (damn! this format automatically adjusts the text to optimal font and screen size, shame on Amazon)
    • yes this sucks! because with the very excellent Librera PRO eBook reader app every Android based smart phone can open those formats: PDF, EPUB, MOBI, DjVu, FB2, TXT, RTF, AZW, AZW3, HTML, CBZ, CBR, DOC, DOCX, etc. formats
    • which is absolutely AMAZING 🙂 (thanks all involved)

so: it is probably better to read books on an offline kindle, than to to not read any books at all.

eBook formats: pdf vs epub vs mobi – what’s the difference?

short story: just go with ePub.

long story: epub: “Based off of HTML, it’s the free and open source standard for formatting. And with all those picky publishers and editors out there, you know there’s a good reason why.

Certified by the International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF), EPUB is the most widely supported vendor-independent eBook format.”

2011: “Amazon discontinued support for the MOBI file format. But that doesn’t make it the end of MOBI (Similar to another Moby’s Animal Rights…). Instead, MOBI was reborn as AZW.

AZW = MOBI + DRM

AZW is essentially the exact same thing as MOBI but with a different name and DRM (Digital Rights Management) scheme.”

(src)

la device:

would never have bought one of those Kindle ebook readers… but now that got one PaperWhite from eBay for 100€ must say: impressive what a Freescale CPU (single core) + linux + very power efficient screen can do.

specs: of Model: DP75SDI

Dimensions: 117 x 169 x 9.1 mm
Weight: 206 g
SoC: Freescale i.MX508
CPU: ARM Cortex-A8, 1000 MHz, Cores: 1
RAM: 256 MB
Storage: 2 GB, 4 GB
Display: 6 in, E Ink Carta, 1024 x 768 pixels
Battery: 1420 mAh, Li-Polymer
Wi-Fi: b, g, n
USB: 2.0, Micro USB

src: https://www.devicespecifications.com/en/model/517d2e37

User can not take out the battery (which is a crime in itself) and user can apparently NOT switch it off, just pause.

When user keeps power button (on the bottom next to the microphone) pressed – it starts blinking green – it starts blinking yellow – then reboots. (no 4sec off like PCs have)

#BigBrotherAward: #OrwellAwards the perfect surveillance tool

Trust Amazon! They surely will NOT analyze your life – noooooo – after entering your Wifi password and amazon details – you can also link it to Facebook and Twitter. “Great”.

Not even a hair dryer will help you with taking out the battery of a “Amazon Kindle Paperwhite 2 (2013) WLAN” that i got from ebay for 60€ – because it is a completely sealed case. no slits. Congratulations to Amazon and Apple for completely dissalowing any battery change in their devices. This is true freedom as in capitalism (financial dictatorship).

Yes it only has 1x CPU Core X-D (how can things run smooth on one CPU core? unless they are written in Assembler)

It also comes with WiFi and a microphone (!? why does a ebook reader need a microphone?) this is where the surveillance paranoia starts… you COULD hook it up to your Amazon account… and have Amazon know ALL the details about you.

So i decided to reset the thing and not allow it to access the wifi.

The intergration with Linux is pretty smooth.

User was able to simply USB cable hook it up with Debian 8 and CentOS 7 and access the internal memory (2GB) like an USB Stick.

dmesg
[ 4599.857388] usb 2-6: USB disconnect, device number 5
[ 4643.536259] usb 2-6: new high-speed USB device number 6 using xhci_hcd
[ 4643.668561] usb 2-6: New USB device found, idVendor=1949, idProduct=0004
[ 4643.668567] usb 2-6: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
[ 4643.668570] usb 2-6: Product: Amazon Kindle
[ 4643.668573] usb 2-6: Manufacturer: Amazon
[ 4643.668575] usb 2-6: SerialNumber: 90D4220142330XXX
[ 4643.671643] usb-storage 2-6:1.0: USB Mass Storage device detected
[ 4643.671868] scsi host4: usb-storage 2-6:1.0
[ 4644.733479] scsi 4:0:0:0: Direct-Access     Kindle   Internal Storage 0100 PQ: 0 ANSI: 2
[ 4644.734568] sd 4:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg1 type 0
[ 4644.739360] sd 4:0:0:0: [sdb] 2797568 512-byte logical blocks: (1.43 GB/1.33 GiB)
[ 4644.846413] sd 4:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
[ 4644.846417] sd 4:0:0:0: [sdb] Mode Sense: 0f 00 00 00
[ 4644.956331] sd 4:0:0:0: [sdb] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
[ 4645.177569]  sdb: sdb1
[ 4645.396418] sd 4:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI removable disk
[ 4645.928373] FAT-fs (sdb1): Volume was not properly unmounted. Some data may be corrupt. Please run fsck.

mount|grep Kindle
/dev/sdb1 on /run/media/canoodle/Kindle type vfat (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,uid=1000,gid=1000,fmask=0022,dmask=0077,codepage=437,iocharset=ascii,shortname=mixed,showexec,utf8,flush,errors=remount-ro,uhelper=udisks2)

# run filesystemcheck
umount /dev/sdb1
fsck -y -v -f /dev/sdb1
removing dirty bit..
# replugin

While the Kindle can read all kinds of formats (TXT, PDF, unprotected MOBI, HTML, DOC, DOCX, JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP through conversion, AZW3 (Kindle Format 8), AZW (Kindle), PRC natively) there is also a pretty cool eBook management program called Calibre that also can convert eBooks from / to different formats.

check it out: https://calibre-ebook.com/download

the installation worked perfectly on CentOS 7 with:

(yes it really download the latest sources)

sudo -v && wget -nv -O- https://download.calibre-ebook.com/linux-installer.sh | sudo sh /dev/stdin

Using python executable: /bin/python2
2018-04-30 13:39:07 URL:https://download.calibre-ebook.com/linux-installer.sh [30829/30829] -> "-" [1]
Installing to /opt/calibre
Downloading tarball signature securely...
Will download and install calibre-3.22.1-x86_64.txz 
                     Downloading calibre-3.22.1-x86_64.txz                      
100% [======================================================================]
                                                                                Downloaded 62596160 bytes 
Checking downloaded file integrity... 
Extracting files to /opt/calibre ...
Extracting application files... 
Creating symlinks...
	Symlinking /opt/calibre/ebook-polish to /usr/bin/ebook-polish
	Symlinking /opt/calibre/web2disk to /usr/bin/web2disk
	Symlinking /opt/calibre/ebook-edit to /usr/bin/ebook-edit
	Symlinking /opt/calibre/calibre-server to /usr/bin/calibre-server
	Symlinking /opt/calibre/calibredb to /usr/bin/calibredb
	Symlinking /opt/calibre/lrs2lrf to /usr/bin/lrs2lrf
	Symlinking /opt/calibre/lrf2lrs to /usr/bin/lrf2lrs
	Symlinking /opt/calibre/ebook-meta to /usr/bin/ebook-meta
	Symlinking /opt/calibre/calibre-customize to /usr/bin/calibre-customize
	Symlinking /opt/calibre/calibre-smtp to /usr/bin/calibre-smtp
	Symlinking /opt/calibre/calibre-parallel to /usr/bin/calibre-parallel
	Symlinking /opt/calibre/fetch-ebook-metadata to /usr/bin/fetch-ebook-metadata
	Symlinking /opt/calibre/calibre-debug to /usr/bin/calibre-debug
	Symlinking /opt/calibre/markdown-calibre to /usr/bin/markdown-calibre
	Symlinking /opt/calibre/ebook-viewer to /usr/bin/ebook-viewer
	Symlinking /opt/calibre/lrfviewer to /usr/bin/lrfviewer
	Symlinking /opt/calibre/calibre to /usr/bin/calibre
	Symlinking /opt/calibre/ebook-device to /usr/bin/ebook-device
	Symlinking /opt/calibre/ebook-convert to /usr/bin/ebook-convert
Setting up command-line completion...
Installing zsh completion to: /usr/share/zsh/site-functions/_calibre
Failed to find directory to install bash completions, using default.
Installing bash completion to: /usr/share/bash-completion/completions/calibre
Setting up desktop integration...
Creating un-installer: /usr/bin/calibre-uninstall
Run "calibre" to start calibre 

Calibre:

all you have to do is drag a pdf into the quite empty list… and it will be added to your library. R-Click on any book and send it to your device main memory.

src: https://calibre-ebook.com/download_linux

Thats it! Thanks for listening!

can it run linux?

“If it’s connected to a network, Amazon can update my firmware remotely at any time without asking me first, possibly changing the device’s behavior in undesirable ways. They can spy on my reading (how would I know?), delete my books, etc.”

“Under the hood Amazon’s firmware updates are just glorified shell scripts in a proprietary package format that contains an embedded Amazon signature.”

https://www.turnkeylinux.org/blog/kindle-root

ps: Yes you can take out the battery but it’s surely not meant to. and will surely void your warranty.

opt out of the 1984:

reading books is good education

but if user really wants to opt out: do a device reset via the settings and sell it again.

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