Patches Posted With Aim To Mainline Linux Kernel Support For The Amazon Kindle 4

Amazon released the Kindle 4 back in 2011 with a 6-inch E-ink display, 2GB internal storage, and running a modified version of Linux. In the years since the Amazon Kindle 4 has been jail-broken and there are some customized Linux distributions with a patched kernel to run on the Kindle 4. Now in 2026 there are patches on the Linux kernel mailing list looking to mainline support for that fifteen year old e-reader device.

On Sunday open-source developer Andrii Salivon posted the two patches for getting the DeviceTree and binding for the Amazon Kindle 4 "Yoshi" with hopes of getting it finally into the mainline Linux kernel. Again various customized Linux distributions like postmarketOS have supported the Kindle 4 for years but not on the fully mainline kernel.

With the Device Tree support, the i.MX50 powered Amazon Kindle 4 with 2GB of storage can boot the mainline Linux kernel and enables the console and internal eMMC support. Arch Linux for ARM was booted for testing, complete with systemd running on the actual hardware.

The patch series is out for review on the Linux kernel mailing list. We'll see if it gets mainlined but hardly will hard-pressed to be useful for other tasks in 2026+ gicen its 600 x 800 display, 800MHz i.MX508 Cortex-A8 core, 256MB of RAM, and 2GB of flash memory.