Jailbreaking your Kindle, and putting new ‘screensaver’ images

A quick fun post for those of you with an Amazon Kindle – some instructions on how to a) jailbreak your reader (trivially easy), and then b) put your own wallpapers on there, so you get a more interesting ‘screensaver’.

It’s really easy, no more than 20 mins and a couple of reboots/software updates. Most of the time is literally waiting for the reader to restart after you’ve placed a file in the base directory.

All of the instructions are here: http://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/Kindle_Screen_Saver_Hack_for_all_2.x_and_3.x_Kindles

A few notes to make it easier to understand:

1. The current version is around 3.3. You can double-check that you have this (or later) by pressing ‘Menu’, and going down to ‘Settings’. The version is on the bottom line: “Page 1 of 3 Version Kindle 3.3 (61680021)”
2. You will likely need the version marked “*-3.2.1_install.bin”
3. Once the jailbreak has been installed, you can install the screen save hack
4. The zip file has a ‘src’ folder, you’ll also need to copy the src/linkss/ folder to your Kindle, as /linkss/
5. Finally, you can add suitable wallpapers into the /linkss/screensavers/ directory. They should be greyscale .png’s or .jpgs

A quick search for “kindle wallpaper” or “kindle screensaver”, especially if you restrict it to 600×800 pixels sizes will bring up a lot of possibilities. On the right is one I made myself (I’d heard of this particular joke wallpaper before), which you are welcome to use.