Installing KUAL and MRPI on a jailbroken Kindle Paperwhite 1

Although this tutorial is based on a jailbroken Kindle Paperwhite Gen 1, it should also work similarly for other Kindle models.

Why KUAL and MRPI?

Many extensions you can install after jailbreaking the Kindle depends on them, e.g., enabling SSH on the Kindle.

Prerequisites

You have a Kindle which is already jailbroken. If not, refer to this post.

KUAL

It can be installed by following these steps:

1. Go to the Snapshots page on MobileRead, there under the KUAL & KUAL extensions section, you can download the file for the bullet KUAL.
2. Extract the downloaded .tar.xz file.
   • If your Kindle runs firmware 5.x, select file KUAL-KDK-2.0.azw2
   • If your Kindle runs an older firmware, select file KUAL-KDK-1.0.azw2
3. Connect your Kindle to your computer via USB cable. Confirm it’s in USB Drive Mode.
4. Copy the selected file into /documents of your Kindle drive.
5. Disconnect your Kindle and a new book should appear on your home screen.
6. Tap on the book, you enter KUAL, meaning it’s successfully installed.

MRPI

It stands for MobileRead Package Installer, which is an extension of KUAL. You can install many packages using MRPI and it makes your life easier according to MobileRead.

The steps to install are:

1. Go to the Snapshots page on MobileRead, there under the KUAL & KUAL extensions section, you can download the file for the bullet MR Package Installer.
2. Extract the downloaded .tar.xz file.
3. Connect your Kindle to your computer via USB cable. Confirm it’s in USB Drive Mode.
4. Copy all extracted files in Step 2 to the root folder of your Kindle.
5. After disconnecting your Kindle from the computer, you can confirm it’s successfully installed by going to KUAL, there a new helper menu should appear.

Concluding remarks

With these preparations done, many extensions can be installed, which will be shown in the next post.