Amazon Kindle Fire 7″ (Minus Ads) + Raspbian PC

Well, they say it’s in the post. It should arrive before Christmas. This review will get longer as I test it out. I had to get the 8GB version as the lack of adverts was something that was essential. Maybe I’ll get better use of PDFs, and free up quite some space on my mobile by not needing all the document apps on it. I just wonder how much “junk” is installed by default, and how much can’t be disabled. Exciting! Alexa, swear like a sailor!

Quick side notes: I’m replacing my Debian by Raspbian Desktop for PC (Ooooooh). It’s going to be the standard OS of Linux in the company. Just updating the development with node, fpc and git. Along with httpd2, mariadb-server and php.

More gigs of android updates this morning. Why can’t android developers trim their code? The tools are available, but they seem not to be used, and the insistance of stuffing apps with excessive graphical resources continues. How many gig for a texting app?

So it was a little weird. First make sure you have plenty of data, as it will do a system update within a few hours. Get all the apps you can find off the AmazonStore (after you sign in) and be aware that not all the ones you want will be found. Then enable side loading of apps, and get the four needed .apk files for google store. Install these in the correct order, and open play store. Sign in. Get the play apps you want.

A note on compatibility. Microsoft Outlook will required Chrome to use gmail. The play store may try to download updates for some of your apps. This is OK, but some will give errors. This can be divided into 3 groups.

  1. Things like LinkedIn – Likely using a strange hack but it does work.
  2. Kindle app – Play store tries to update and fails, it needs setting to not automatic update in the play store (on the menu of the app listing in the store). This then seems to disappear after the firmware update.
  3. Things like Whatsapp – Just not compatible as there is no phone device.

Luckily the Fire does not try to auto-update apps which were sideloaded (or downloaded from play store). It tells you this in the library updates section, so don’t be tempted to enter update fight hell. This could be problematic. Some notes on the options I chose to ignore on the first setup.

  1. Ignore the Amazon, Facebook and Twitter integration. I mean you could try it, but I haven’t, as the play store apps work just fine.
  2. You must enable sideloading. This can be a problem later if you don’t understand the implication of downloading a .apk file. Remember the play store is the guest store, and so needs sideloading to work. But any random internet site could have a downloadable with bad intent.
  3. Alexa seems to want to work, but she hasn’t said anything yet. Maybe I’m just doing it wrong. This is the most likely option.

After a bit of connection to ADB, it looks like the Alexa service uses about 10% of the processor power just waiting for the word “Alexa”, which is a bit extreme for me. Gag ‘Lexa, oh yes!

Author: Jacko

Technical. Well is mass information conservation the reason for dark energy via uncertain geometry and photon exchange? Is dark matter conservation of acceleration with a gradient field heavy graviton? Does the KODEK work yet?