---
title: A new definition of wrong
date: 2009-07-08 21:43:22.000000000 -07:00
type: post
parent_id: '0'
published: true
password: ''
status: publish
categories: []
tags: []
meta:
  _publicize_pending: '1'
  _import_original_date: 11/04/2009 11:38:55 AM
author:
permalink: "/2009/07/08/new-kindle-features/"
---
<p style="margin:0;line-height:15px;font:13px Trebuchet MS;">I haven't been blogging about the Kindle for a while...mostly because I haven't hacked on the Kindle in a while. &nbsp;The release of the DX got me excited about what's possible with a device like the Kindle. I spent a bunch of time trying to get native framebuffer applications working on my Kindle 2. Yesterday, I struck upon an awful, awful idea.</p>
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<p style="margin:0;line-height:15px;font:13px Trebuchet MS;">Ubuntu Jaunty has an ARM target. &nbsp;It's a fairly similar linux to the OS shipped on the Kindle 2 and the Kindle DX. A little bit of fiddling and an NFS export later, I was able to <span style="font:13px Courier;">chroot</span> into an Ubuntu environment on my Kindle.&nbsp;</p>
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<p style="margin:0;line-height:15px;font:13px Trebuchet MS;">That&nbsp;was&nbsp;when&nbsp;I&nbsp;discovered&nbsp;that&nbsp;Lab126&nbsp;have&nbsp;built&nbsp;the&nbsp;Kindle's&nbsp;kernel&nbsp;without&nbsp;<span style="font:13px Courier;">CONFIG_VT</span>...and X.org <em>really</em> wants a tty or virtual terminal, but not for any particularly good reason.</p>
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<p style="margin:0;line-height:15px;font:13px Trebuchet MS;">This evening, I managed to bludgeon X.org into submission and found myself face to face with everybody's favorite checkerboard background.</p>
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<p style="margin:0;line-height:15px;font:13px Trebuchet MS;">After that, it was just a hop, skip and an apt-get until I was watching the mesmerizing transitions of <span style="font:13px Courier;">xdaliclock.</span></p>
<p style="margin:0;line-height:15px;font:13px Trebuchet MS;"><span style="font-family:Courier, Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="margin:0;line-height:15px;font:13px Trebuchet MS;"><span style="font-family:Courier, Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></p>
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<div style="text-align:center;">[flickr video=3702221011 show_info=true secret=8959480e1e w=400 h=327]</div>
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<p style="margin:0;line-height:15px;font:13px Trebuchet MS;"></p>
<p>(Yes, I know it's incredibly blurry. I haven't managed to get the pinhole camera on my DX calibrated yet)</p>
<p style="margin:0;line-height:15px;font:13px Trebuchet MS;">Clearly this is <span style="text-decoration:line-through;">the killer app for the Kindle</span> just a stepping stone. I still don't have the Keyboard or 5way hooked up and what I do have working is incredibly brittle.&nbsp; But <span style="font:13px Courier;">xpdf</span> (and lots of other stuff) runs unmodified.</p>