Now that I’ve gotten the Kindle looking and working just how I like it, I suppose it’s time to get ready to mess it all up. As before, I’m going to mention where I got started on this process, but then link to the specific post/page/file where I ended up.
- USB Network Hack
- The last time I tried to implement this hack, I started at the MobileRead wiki on this page. Not only did it not work for me, but I ended up preventing the Kindle from connecting to my PC over USB. Let’s see if we can avoid that this time.
- I’ll use the “Packages targeting Kindle 2/Dx/DXG/3/4” from NiLuJe’s 10/18/2013 post, updated 01/03/2025, specifically the “kindle-usbnetwork-0.57.N-r18979.tar.xz” file.
- Following the instructions in the “README_FIRST.txt” file, drop the “Update_usbnetwork_0.57.N_k4_install.bin” into the root, then as with most of the steps thus far, safely eject the Kindle, Menu Button -> Settings -> Menu Button -> Update Your Kindle, confirm, and wait patiently.
- I just can’t seem to get this to work. I’ll update it later if I can. In the meantime, I’m going to forge ahead with a series of suggestions from Redditor /user/SpartanHeavy/ on the /r/Kindle subreddit. They suggest continuing the toolchain after the jailbreak to the Mobile Kindlet Kit, the KUAL, the DevCerts update, and then the KOReader. If this works, I think it will enable me to add functionality that will do an end run around the Calibre UI causing all books to appear on the main screen. Let’s find out!
- MobileRead Kindlet Kit
- Download “kindle-mkk-20141129-r18833.tar.xz” from the same mega-post from NiLuJe, extract “Update_mkk-20141129-k4-ALL_install.bin”, save to the root of the Kindle, safely eject the Kindle, Menu Button -> Settings -> Menu Button -> Update Your Kindle, confirm, and wait patiently.
- KUAL
- Download “KUAL-v2.7.37-gfcb45b5-20250419.tar.xz” from the mega-post, extract “KUAL-KDK-1.0.azw2”, save to the “/documents/” folder on the Kindle. (Note: This is not KUAL (coplate) or KUAL+)
- Install DevCerts Update
- Download “DevCerts-20250419-KeyStore.zip” from this post by NiLuJe, extract “Update_mkk-20250419-k4-ALL_keystore-install.bin”, save to the root of the Kindle, safely eject the Kindle, Menu Button -> Settings -> Menu Button -> Update Your Kindle, confirm, and wait patiently.
- Note: I noticed before I restarted the Kindle there’s something called “dev KUAL and it lists the author as “ixtab NiLuJe twobob stepk”. 1
- Install KOReader
- Download KOReader from this Github repository, specifically this file “koreader-kindle-v2025.04.zip“. Unzip all of the contents into the root directory of the Kindle.
So, after all that, I don’t see that the “USBnetwork” or “USBnet” are in any way working on this device. That’s okay. I haven’t killed it, I can still ready my books updated via Kindle/Amazon/Libby and I can read the books I’ve archived via Calibre, and I have the cool new screensavers. The KOReader should theoretically permit me to view Wikipedia, but when everyone pretty much has a phone that can access the web easier, who would want to read a wikipedia entry on a much slower device?
As it turns out, I’m just not going to be able to use USBnetwork, even if I could get it working, to have the Kindle OS treat Calibre books in the same hide-when-in-a-collection as native Amazon formatted books. There are some super hacky work arounds involving scripts and such that would permit me to do this, but then hiding a book from the main screen would make it unavailable elsewhere, which kinda defeats the purpose.
I may give Duokan a try later. The major relevant benefits of Duokan appear to be easy organization of books into folders and possibly longer battery life. Any amount of battery life in excess of a day’s worth of reading is likely to be more than sufficient for me. However, I kinda dislike the clutter and disorganization of the native Kindle OS treatment of Calibre books. One drawback to Duokan is that it can’t download books through the Amazon ecosystem, so I’d need to re-boot into Kindle OS any time I wanted to check out a new library book. This may be enough to get me to add this dual-booting operating system to the Kindle.
Lastly, the number of additional resources and sites that I went through to even get as far as I have above has been dizzying. There was a CNet2 article about screensaver hacks, but none of the images work and it’s not a lot easier to follow. I also stumbled across the blog of someone named “Yifan Lu” who I suspect was a contributor to many of the various NiLuJe updates. If I ever get far enough with the SSH nonsense I was chasing, I also found a site with a Javascript tool to figure out the Kindle’s default root password. The secret appears to be the password is the word “fiona” plus the MD5 hash of the all caps serial number for the Kindle.
Kindle 4 Non Touch Customization