[ale] I Win, I Win!

[Charles Shapiro]

Hmm.  I bought the 7" Kindle Fire from Amazon on sale for $40 on the 5th
after seeing a note on boingboing (
http://boingboing.net/2017/02/05/amazon-fire-tablet-on-sale-for.html ).
Until you gain root access to your tablet, it is basically owned by Amazon.
They won't let you use it for much that doesn't involve giving them money.
That may or may not bother you.  It's possible to install the Google
playstore app on an un-rooted Fire, which gives you marginally more
control. I didn't bother with the shipped UI much, but from what I saw it
was very difficult to load and use non-Amazon apps on it. You can't change
the launcher on an un-rooted Fire.  Some Google apps also may not run on
the Fire builds of Android. The Fire as shipped has a plethora of
garbageware which you're not allowed to remove without root access.  The
Fire I bought has an SD card slot, but it only contains 8 gb of internal
storage.

 I lucked out.  My tablet came with FireOS 5.3.2.0 installed, which is
downgradeable to FireOs 5.2. I was able to find that version by groveling
around on the web a bit. 5.2 is vulnerable to Kingroot (
https://kingroot.net/ ). The next point release (the current one) is
5.3.2.1. Trying to roll back that version will brick the device.  It may
not be rootable although some reports hint at success with Kingroot.  I
cannot say whether the device you buy from Amazon today will have a
rootable version of FireOS on it. Swappa ( http://swappa.com ) has a bunch
of Kindle Fires in various prices, ages, and conditions. Those devices
almost certainly have older, easily rootable versions of the Amazon ROM on
them.

Sound quality is good but not great. It's loud enough to hear from across
the room in a quiet place.  I wouldn't try to use it for music while
practicing though. The speaker is in the lower right rear of the case. A
paper clip will stick to the magnet there.   I haven't experimented with
ROMs beyond the Nexus Lollipop build I have on there right now.  Other
software might change the sound quality.  CyanogenMod comes with a fairly
sophisticated mixer. You can still find the CM 12 build for the Fire out
there. I tried to put that on my Fire but did not succeed.  So far to the
best of my knowledge there are no Lineage ( http://lineageos.org ) builds
for the Fire.  I hope that changes eventually.

The 2 MP rear-facing camera is also mediocre.  But heck, for $40 it's great
for sitting on the couch drinking and browsing. And it keeps me off my
computers, where I have a tendency to get involved with development after a
beer or two. This has generally been a Bad Idea.

-- CHS


On Tue, Feb 14, 2017 at 11:11 AM, Greg Clifton <gccfof5 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Two questions for CS:
>
> 1) Whence come this Kindle Fire?
>
> 2) How good is the audio on the device sans head phones? I listen to a lot
> of streaming radio and my iPad has issues now and this could be cheaper
> than fixing it.
>
>
> On Mon, Feb 13, 2017 at 10:34 PM, Charles Shapiro <hooterpincher at gmail.com
> > wrote:
>
>>
>> It was Sunday.  Mostly the NYT.
>>
>> --CHS
>>
>> On Monday, February 13, 2017, Chris Fowler <cfowler at outpostsentinel.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>
>>> ------------------------------
>>>
>>> *From: *"Pete Hardie" <pete.hardie at gmail.com>
>>> *To: *"Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts - Yes! We run Linux!" <ale at ale.org>
>>> *Sent: *Monday, February 13, 2017 3:00:32 PM
>>> *Subject: *Re: [ale] I Win, I Win!
>>>
>>> "read the paper while"
>>>
>>>
>>> I read a "paper white".  I think it was 40 to 80lbs.  25 years ago?
>>>
>>
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>
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