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Have you ever wanted to use your Kindle Paperwhite to write, even more, with a vim-like editor? This is what PiWrite is for.
The TL;DR is a webserver running somewhere a keyboard can be plugged, and a page opened in the Kindle's web browser.
The not-so-short version requires more effort and details, but is the UX I wanted to get:
- A Raspberry Pi Zero W…
- Paired with a Bluetooth keyboard…
- Set up in access point mode…
- With this package installed…
- And configured to start automatically on boot.
I was inspired by SolarWriter by Michael Solomon. I had always wanted to use my Kindle for writing. SolarWriter solves that by setting up a local web server on your phone (iOS or Android), then you type with a Bluetooth keyboard paired with it. But you need to set up hotspot, keep your screen on… I didn't like those parts. So I wrote this.
This is open source, and I'll be happy to see it extended and improved. But I'm unlikely to accept contributions: I want a reduced feature set, with only what I need. This is why I didn't release this to PyPI, so anybody can have its own version with custom tweaks and installs it easily from their own repository.
With a current enough version of pip you can install directly from the repository (or from your fork) with
pip install piwrite@git+https://github.com/rberenguel/PiWriteOr with pipx (recommended) with
pipx install piwrite@git+https://github.com/rberenguel/PiWriteYou might need to add /home/YOU/.local/bin to your PATH (like adding export PATH="/home/YOU/.local/bin:$PATH" at the end of your .bashrc, .zshenv or similar).
Once you have installed it you can try it locally (by default it will serve back at 127.0.0.1:80), and optionally configure host and port, like:
PIWRITE_HOST=pi
PIWRITE_PORT=31415Point your web browser to this address and try! The editor is vim inspired, and the instructions can be found in help
If you need a Pi, I can't recommend Pimoroni enough. I'm not affiliated, I just buy always from them.
The instructions below may be missing some piece, I have written it based on my bash history and what I remember having to tweak. With the information of what you need to do, there are plenty of tutorials on how to approach each step though.
Best is installing a lightweight Raspbian version, since the Zero is not a terribly fast machine. By "mistake" (I was trying something) I updated the lite version (on Buster, I think) to Bookworm. Don't do that, not needed.
To configure everything you will need to set up the Raspberry for ssh access, and better with password. For using it as a "magical thing that lets the Kindle work as a text editor" is better if you disable requiring password for logging in via tty. You can enable this (known as autologin) by running sudo raspi-config, in the System Options section. You specifically want Console autologin.
You also better set up wifi connectivity too. You can set this up by adding a wpa_supplicant.conf file to the boot partition of the SD card with contents like the following:
network={
ssid="YOUR_NETWORK_NAME"
psk="YOUR_PASSWORD"
key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
}
Steps needed after this:
- Pair with a Bluetooth keyboard;
- Set up a wireless access point on your Raspberry;
- Install the package and set it up;
- Nice-to-have: ssh via USB (there are many tutorials for this).
Pick your poison. The standard way is using bluetoothctl. I found that installing Bluetuith was more convenient to be sure the pairing had worked. On the con side, you need to install the whole Go runtime.
Remember: the keyboard will be usable in the tty session, NOT in any ssh-initiated session.
If you want any fancy keyboard configuration (I use Colemak, and like my caps to be control) you will have to edit /etc/default/keyboard and add something like the following:
XKBMODEL="pc105"
XKBLAYOUT="us"
XKBVARIANT="colemak"
XKBOPTIONS="ctrl:nocaps"
I followed the instructions from here: Turn a Raspberry Pi into a Web Server with Its Own Wifi Network (Tech Note). From these instructions, you can (optionally) skip the routing stuff for this. Although the post mentions only working in Buster, I followed the exact same steps and worked just fine in Bookworm.
The TL;DR version:
Get the access point and DNS services
sudo apt install hostapd dnsmasq
Turn it on
sudo systemctl unmask hostapd
sudo systemctl enable hostapd
Edit /etc/dhcpcd.conf (sudo) and add at the end
interface wlan0
static ip_address=192.168.11.1/24
nohook wpa_supplicant
Important
When you want to re-connect your Zero to your wifi, you need to comment this out, otherwise you are out of AP access and out of SSH via Wifi (or even USB gadget) access. If you forget, you'll need to edit the raw disk from another Linux device.
You now need to configure /etc/dnsmasq.conf with
interface=wlan0 # Listening interface
dhcp-range=192.168.11.2,192.168.11.20,255.255.255.0,24h
# Pool of IP addresses served via DHCP
domain=write # Local wireless DNS domain
address=/pi/192.168.11.1
# Alias for this router
and now that you are at it, change /etc/hostname to be pi.
Finally, configure /etc/hostapd/hostapd.conf with (use your country code, of course)
country_code=CH
interface=wlan0
ssid=EnchantedRose
hw_mode=g
channel=7
macaddr_acl=0
auth_algs=1
ignore_broadcast_ssid=0
wpa=2
wpa_passphrase=CHOOSE SOMETHING
wpa_key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
wpa_pairwise=TKIP
rsn_pairwise=CCMP
Now, reboot (sudo shutdown -r now or sudo systemctl reboot).
If you ever want to disable AP and enable normal wifi, run sudo systemctl disable hostapd dnsmasq AND remove the static IP setting mentioned above.
Install pipx with sudo apt install pipx and then install piwrite with
pipx install piwrite@git+https://github.com/rberenguel/PiWriteYou'll want to add pipx's binaries to the path, for example by adding export PATH="/home/YOU/.local/bin:$PATH".
Since the ideal experience is not having to add a port in the Kindle browser, the default port piwrite uses is 80. But that needs allowlisting:
sudo setcap CAP_NET_BIND_SERVICE=+eip /usr/bin/python3.11
Tweak the Python version depending on what you have.
You can test if it works (i.e.. if it is the right version or not) or not by starting piwrite now (you may need to change the exported host).
You'll also want to start piwrite on tty user start, you can do this by adding the following to the end of your .profile
export PIWRITE_HOST=pi.write # or just pi, if it's not under the access point
piwrite
To update, first disable access point mode (that is, remove the static IP settings on dhcpcd.conf and disable the hostapd and dnsmasq services), then run:
pipx uninstall piwrite
pipx install piwrite@git+https://github.com/rberenguel/PiWrite
So far I haven't had luck reinstalling. Uninstall is fast though. If you are using your own fork, just use your own git location.
It would look as if nothing is needed from the Kindle side, but actually connecting to an access point that provides no internet is not something a Kindle enjoys.
You have to:
- Connect your Kindle via USB to a computer,
- Create a file called
WIFI_NO_NET_PROBEin the root folder of your Kindle, - Restart it.
This skips connectivity check (it will also make connecting to any other WiFi way faster).
The Kindle browser is weird and does not support everything. No websockets, only longpolling (or so it seems). For some reason, only version 3.0 of the socketio JavaScript libraries worked correctly. I found no way to get the Kindle browser to rotate the whole page via CSS so I could have a landscape view.
My first trial implementation tried using pynvim (the NeoVim API layer) as the underlying editor. That would have been awesome, real vim! But it didn't work for obscure reasons (I had to do some unholy things with asyncio that caused it to explode easily).
I wrote half of this directly on the Zero from my iPad, using Blink to SSH into it. The second half, I wrote it on my iPad with iVim, ish and Inspect Browser. The finishing touches (moving to Poetry and cleaning up), on my Mac. For local development, you can then use basically anything. Just choose a valid port for your system and make sure the host is valid. 127.0.0.1 is the default choice and the one that should work.