[Kindle Fire General] paultman:
Cheers Everyone,

First off, thanks for opening this thread.

I've recently rooted my kindle and was very pleasantly surprised when I noticed a very familiar linux-like file system underneath. Now I'm eager to learn more.

Let me start from what I know (or think I know :p)

For custom bootloaders, the goto seems to be firefirefire

for recovery mini-os which is recommended? CWMR or TWRP

I hate to ask because I see it all over the forums, but the responses are all over the place. It looks like TWRP had a gui, and easier for backup/restore, but maybe CWMR... performs better?

Ok, let me get to the main questions, understanding android itself.

this all started when I discovered $adb shell

ok, when you install a new ROM it wipes /system from the devise and copies the /system from the zip, also it seems to append to the /data (assuming your rom zip came with applications). Does installing a rom do anything else? I see this file in my zip /META-INF/com/google/android/updater-script and update-binary. Does one of those automatically get run when you use the recovery loader to install a new ROM? Ok, looking at the contents of the file, it seems like it is the script run to install the ROM, it does lots of things like sets up simlinks, and sets permissions.

$ df

Filesystem Size Used Free Blksize

/dev 223M 32K 223M 4096

/mnt/asec 223M 0K 223M 4096

/mnt/obb 223M 0K 223M 4096

/system 503M 296M 207M 4096

/data 1G 76M 1G 4096

/dropbox 4M 1M 3M 1024

/cache 251M 4M 247M 4096

/mnt/sdcard 5G 15M 4G 4096

/mnt/secure/asec: Permission denied

$ echo $PATH

/sbin:/vendor/bin:/system/sbin:/system/bin:/system/xbin

Now for some questions:

using adb shell, how do I get root permissions? Infact, what user am I when first start it? what editors are available? (vi?pico?ed? where?)

I looked around after installing modaco rom and I'm surprised to see some files like: TICameraCameraProperties.xml in /system/etc. it's full of camera stuff, i'm surprised to find that on my kindle since there is no camera on the devise. So my question is, with these custom rooms, are extra files littered all about, assuming they were used for other devices and just never removed when ported for the kindle? I'm surprised since modaco is based on stock 6.3.... maybe amazon added it in preparation for the next kindle?

Help me understand what's in the partitions

first, why don't I see /boot or /recovery?

next,

/dev ok, this is for the hardware, but why so big? seems like we could get by with just a few megs

/mnt/asec secure files? any example of this being used? Again, that's alotta space...

/mnt/obb no idea what this is... luv to make it smaller

/system os

/data apps and user files

/dropbox dropbox for what?

/cache assuming swap and paging

Another question, I assume when switching roms from diff android versions, like GB, HC, ICS, you need to wipe and install/reinstall your apps (in /data) since they will need versions specific to the android version you are running? or is each future android version assumed to be backwards compatible...?

Anyone who's taken a look "under the covers" probably has similar questions and I hope one of our more experiences brothers can shed some light on the above questions.

Many thanks to everyone who contributes,

Paul