11 ms·

I'm using Linux and trying to find a e-reader recently. Here is what I tested on Arch: Calibre: Failed to open Okular: Ugly, cannot modify margin bookworm: N

I'm using Linux and trying to find a e-reader recently. Here is what I tested on Arch: Calibre: Failed to open Okular: Ugly, cannot modify margin bookworm: No two-page view, only scrolling-mode, and scrolling-mode cannot get the reading progress zathura: too simplify resulting in not know how to use lector: cannot recognize epub...... Buka: cannot open the book. (I don't get the logic flow, create a list first, then import the book, then crash) Until I found Foliate, it support two-page view w/ progress bar, it support epub will in different language (I test en_US and zh_TW), fast lookup (gtrans, Wiktionary, Wikipedia), good UI, ...etc

pastage 7y ago
Fbreader is nice, I've only used Calibre for converting ebooks not sure you can read in it.
- 2rsf 7y ago
  you can reader using Calibre, it's far from being a good reader https://news-cdn.softpedia.com/images/news2/calibre-ebook-reader-and-converter-gets-new-filters-for-the-library-501020-2.jpg https://news-cdn.softpedia.com/images/news2/calibre-ebook-re...
  - iamnotacrook 7y ago
    If you open a .mobi in Calibre it takes tens of seconds, on a reasonably fast system, to open small (<2meg) books. I'd agree with the other comments here - Calibre is great in terms of it being powerful (web server to serve up books directly to a kindle without having to plug it in, search is ok once you know how to use it) but has a terrible UI (I shouldn't have to google to discover how to search my local library).
    - tomlong 7y ago
      I've been using Calibre-Web[1] as a frontend for the Calibre database, visiting it with my Kobo Auro H2O. It will do neat things like convert to Kindle & email to the Kindle address with a button press as well so I can give access to my mum and so she can seamlessly read the epub books I have in my library on her Kindle. It doesn't look great on the Kobo, but I can navigate pretty quickly to download a book, and I hardly ever have to touch calibre itself. It's pretty easy to get set up running headlessly on a server somwhere. [1] https://github.com/janeczku/calibre-web https://github.com/janeczku/calibre-web
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
- abrowne 7y ago
  I liked FBReader until I realized it wasn't displaying the blank lines used by the book series I was reading to separate sections in a chapter. Undoubtably the ebooks' CSS was bad, but other readers, like my Sony e-ink device, displayed them OK.
agumonkey 7y ago
foliate seems a great thing, but /usr/bin/com.github.johnfactotum.Foliate .. come on
- ayoisaiah 7y ago
  This scheme of naming binaries is popular amongst Elementary os apps. Maybe that's were the Dev took the idea from. I don't mind it, and if it bothers you, you can easily alias it to something else
  - agumonkey 7y ago
    of course, after you locate the binary in your fs
  - vetinari 7y ago
    It is a scheme used by Flatpak. The package prefix is mandatory, in order for flatpaks not to stomp on each other.
    - TingPing 7y ago
      To be exact Flatpak only requires that for exported data files. Since binaries are not exported they can be named anything.
      - vetinari 7y ago
        Binaries are not exported, but helper launch scripts are (those that do "exec flatpak run ...").
    - ayoisaiah 7y ago
      Oh alright, I didn't realise that
dmm 7y ago
> Calibre: Failed to open Perhaps this says more about Arch than it does Calibre.
- bechampion 7y ago
  dont you dare!
- lulouie 7y ago
  yep, is because Arch (basically because qt5 upgrade...), and with the issue on it: https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/63051 https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/63051 $ calibre Fatal Python error: PyQt5.QtCore: Unable to embed qt.conf [1] 13321 abort (core dumped) calibre At that moment, I didn't have time to workaround on it :(
  - r3bl 7y ago
    Ah, too bad. It's the crappiest of the bunch UX-wise, but nothing comes close to it feature-wise. I don't use it to read (I have an e-reader for that purpose), but I'd be lost without Calibre for ebook management.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - crooked-v 7y ago
      I really wish there was a practical alternative to Calibre for general ebook organization purposes. It's extra-painful that Books.app on Mac could almost fit that role, except that it doesn't let you edit enough metadata for your own imported files to properly manage series/publisher stuff.
    - qplex 7y ago
      I recently used Calibre to convert a pdf to epub. I agree the UX is lacking, but it works.
  - dmm 7y ago
    Ah, the joys and pain of a rolling release :) Sorry for the snarkiness in my previous comment, if you get the chance perhaps you can look into helping with this issue. Contributing to the distributions I use has taught me a lot about the tools I use every day.
afranchuk 7y ago
I've never personally used it for epub, but apparently mupdf works with epub files. It's my go-to PDF viewer at least. Just be sure to read the man pages as most operations are keyboard hotkeys.
- michaelmrose 7y ago
  Mupdf is a better backend for zathura than it is a reader in its own right. It's UI is lacking most notably lacking the ability to access the index.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - maskros 7y ago
    Make sure you use mupdf-gl rather than mupdf-x11; then press 'o' for toggling the outline/index/table of contents.
    - michaelmrose 7y ago
      Thank you.
baybal2 7y ago
Ever tried Evince?
- lulouie 7y ago
  I test it on macOS, it can't work will with epub from Kobo :(
- johnfactotum 7y ago
  Evince doesn't support EPUB, and the request for support has been marked as WONTFIX (see https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=539347 https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=539347). However, Atril, which was originally forked from Evince, does support EPUB rather well.
dsr_ 7y ago
The epubreader addon for Firefox is not perfect, but it is pretty good. It would be better if it would: - reflow on window size change - allow me to pick any system font to read in
ayoisaiah 7y ago
Bookworm definitely has a two-page view. I'm using it on Elementary OS
- johnfactotum 7y ago
  Two-page view in Bookworm is problematic. See https://github.com/babluboy/bookworm/issues/199 https://github.com/babluboy/bookworm/issues/199
elagost 7y ago
Running Arch as well and I use the Calibre Flatpak to manage my Kindle. I plug it in every month or so and haven't had any failures in the last year. I've found that Flatpaks solve the problem of some older programs not working well on Arch or some programs not getting updated on Debian.
michaelmrose 7y ago
Regarding Zathura the most readily available resource can be found by running man zathura and man zathurarc. The same info is of course on the web. It does 2 page view, optionally shows progress, and with the mupdf backend supports epub and pdf and a few more. Now it doesn't support mobi but calibre can automatically create an epub from the mobi on import. Calibre is still useful in 17 different ways even if you don't actually use it to read the book.
- DyslexicAtheist 7y ago
  I switched to Zathura and don't look back. I now read my PDF in my own color scheme[1] and totally love the keybindings. [1] config: https://pastebin.com/raw/NwYB0JNf https://pastebin.com/raw/NwYB0JNf
  - guide42 7y ago
    Thanks. This is how it looks: https://i.imgur.com/7LVLJZQ.png https://i.imgur.com/7LVLJZQ.png
ernst_klim 7y ago
Impressive, you've tried so much e-readers except the right one: FBreader.
loeg 7y ago
Calibre's ebook-viewer is tolerable when your distro doesn't break Qt5/Calibre; I think that's an Arch problem, unfortunately.
unixhero 7y ago
Well you forgot FB Reader
darkpuma 7y ago
pandoc+emacs. I also use the read-aloud package, which all together makes the best ereader+TTS experience. (However I run the TTS over the lan on a mac, because FOSS text-to-speech is awful.)
reeves23423 7y ago
I am currently using https://github.com/burtonator/polar-bookshelf https://github.com/burtonator/polar-bookshelf and its one of the amazing software i use daily.

pastage 7y ago

Fbreader is nice, I've only used Calibre for converting ebooks not sure you can read in it.

2rsf 7y ago
you can reader using Calibre, it's far from being a good reader https://news-cdn.softpedia.com/images/news2/calibre-ebook-reader-and-converter-gets-new-filters-for-the-library-501020-2.jpg https://news-cdn.softpedia.com/images/news2/calibre-ebook-re...
- iamnotacrook 7y ago
  If you open a .mobi in Calibre it takes tens of seconds, on a reasonably fast system, to open small (<2meg) books. I'd agree with the other comments here - Calibre is great in terms of it being powerful (web server to serve up books directly to a kindle without having to plug it in, search is ok once you know how to use it) but has a terrible UI (I shouldn't have to google to discover how to search my local library).
  - tomlong 7y ago
    I've been using Calibre-Web[1] as a frontend for the Calibre database, visiting it with my Kobo Auro H2O. It will do neat things like convert to Kindle & email to the Kindle address with a button press as well so I can give access to my mum and so she can seamlessly read the epub books I have in my library on her Kindle. It doesn't look great on the Kobo, but I can navigate pretty quickly to download a book, and I hardly ever have to touch calibre itself. It's pretty easy to get set up running headlessly on a server somwhere. [1] https://github.com/janeczku/calibre-web https://github.com/janeczku/calibre-web
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
abrowne 7y ago
I liked FBReader until I realized it wasn't displaying the blank lines used by the book series I was reading to separate sections in a chapter. Undoubtably the ebooks' CSS was bad, but other readers, like my Sony e-ink device, displayed them OK.

agumonkey 7y ago

foliate seems a great thing, but /usr/bin/com.github.johnfactotum.Foliate .. come on

ayoisaiah 7y ago
This scheme of naming binaries is popular amongst Elementary os apps. Maybe that's were the Dev took the idea from. I don't mind it, and if it bothers you, you can easily alias it to something else
- agumonkey 7y ago
  of course, after you locate the binary in your fs
- vetinari 7y ago
  It is a scheme used by Flatpak. The package prefix is mandatory, in order for flatpaks not to stomp on each other.
  - TingPing 7y ago
    To be exact Flatpak only requires that for exported data files. Since binaries are not exported they can be named anything.
    - vetinari 7y ago
      Binaries are not exported, but helper launch scripts are (those that do "exec flatpak run ...").
  - ayoisaiah 7y ago
    Oh alright, I didn't realise that

dmm 7y ago

> Calibre: Failed to open Perhaps this says more about Arch than it does Calibre.

bechampion 7y ago
dont you dare!
lulouie 7y ago
yep, is because Arch (basically because qt5 upgrade...), and with the issue on it: https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/63051 https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/63051 $ calibre Fatal Python error: PyQt5.QtCore: Unable to embed qt.conf [1] 13321 abort (core dumped) calibre At that moment, I didn't have time to workaround on it :(
- r3bl 7y ago
  Ah, too bad. It's the crappiest of the bunch UX-wise, but nothing comes close to it feature-wise. I don't use it to read (I have an e-reader for that purpose), but I'd be lost without Calibre for ebook management.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - crooked-v 7y ago
    I really wish there was a practical alternative to Calibre for general ebook organization purposes. It's extra-painful that Books.app on Mac could almost fit that role, except that it doesn't let you edit enough metadata for your own imported files to properly manage series/publisher stuff.
  - qplex 7y ago
    I recently used Calibre to convert a pdf to epub. I agree the UX is lacking, but it works.
- dmm 7y ago
  Ah, the joys and pain of a rolling release :) Sorry for the snarkiness in my previous comment, if you get the chance perhaps you can look into helping with this issue. Contributing to the distributions I use has taught me a lot about the tools I use every day.

afranchuk 7y ago

I've never personally used it for epub, but apparently mupdf works with epub files. It's my go-to PDF viewer at least. Just be sure to read the man pages as most operations are keyboard hotkeys.

michaelmrose 7y ago
Mupdf is a better backend for zathura than it is a reader in its own right. It's UI is lacking most notably lacking the ability to access the index.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- maskros 7y ago
  Make sure you use mupdf-gl rather than mupdf-x11; then press 'o' for toggling the outline/index/table of contents.
  - michaelmrose 7y ago
    Thank you.

baybal2 7y ago

Ever tried Evince?

lulouie 7y ago
I test it on macOS, it can't work will with epub from Kobo :(
johnfactotum 7y ago
Evince doesn't support EPUB, and the request for support has been marked as WONTFIX (see https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=539347 https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=539347). However, Atril, which was originally forked from Evince, does support EPUB rather well.

dsr_ 7y ago

The epubreader addon for Firefox is not perfect, but it is pretty good. It would be better if it would: - reflow on window size change - allow me to pick any system font to read in

ayoisaiah 7y ago

Bookworm definitely has a two-page view. I'm using it on Elementary OS

johnfactotum 7y ago
Two-page view in Bookworm is problematic. See https://github.com/babluboy/bookworm/issues/199 https://github.com/babluboy/bookworm/issues/199

elagost 7y ago

Running Arch as well and I use the Calibre Flatpak to manage my Kindle. I plug it in every month or so and haven't had any failures in the last year. I've found that Flatpaks solve the problem of some older programs not working well on Arch or some programs not getting updated on Debian.

michaelmrose 7y ago

Regarding Zathura the most readily available resource can be found by running man zathura and man zathurarc. The same info is of course on the web. It does 2 page view, optionally shows progress, and with the mupdf backend supports epub and pdf and a few more. Now it doesn't support mobi but calibre can automatically create an epub from the mobi on import. Calibre is still useful in 17 different ways even if you don't actually use it to read the book.

DyslexicAtheist 7y ago
I switched to Zathura and don't look back. I now read my PDF in my own color scheme[1] and totally love the keybindings. [1] config: https://pastebin.com/raw/NwYB0JNf https://pastebin.com/raw/NwYB0JNf
- guide42 7y ago
  Thanks. This is how it looks: https://i.imgur.com/7LVLJZQ.png https://i.imgur.com/7LVLJZQ.png

ernst_klim 7y ago

Impressive, you've tried so much e-readers except the right one: FBreader.

loeg 7y ago

Calibre's ebook-viewer is tolerable when your distro doesn't break Qt5/Calibre; I think that's an Arch problem, unfortunately.

unixhero 7y ago

Well you forgot FB Reader

darkpuma 7y ago

pandoc+emacs. I also use the read-aloud package, which all together makes the best ereader+TTS experience. (However I run the TTS over the lan on a mac, because FOSS text-to-speech is awful.)

reeves23423 7y ago

I am currently using https://github.com/burtonator/polar-bookshelf https://github.com/burtonator/polar-bookshelf and its one of the amazing software i use daily.