Calibre powerful and easy to use e-book manager

[bigpup]

Calabre
is a powerful and easy to use e-book manager. Users say it’s outstanding and a must-have. It’ll allow you to do nearly everything and it takes things a step beyond normal e-book software.

You can get it from it's web site:
https://calibre-ebook.com/download_linux

Use the first terminal command it says to use to download and install.
If the first command gives problems.
Read the info about why you may want to use the second command they give.

Very important:
You will need to have the Puppy version devx.sfs loaded to provide needed files and programs for compiling.

It will not make a menu entry for calibre.
You can run it from terminal by typing calibre and pressing enter.
Can go to opt/calibre
Drag and drop the calibre file onto the desktop, to make a desktop icon, to click on, to run it.

[PuppyandCo]

I tried Calibre after seeing it recommended for comics - but it turned out to be unsuitable for my situation. I don't know if it shares the common problem of media library software of being built by hobbyists for a single use-case and OS/platform (their own). But Calibre starts off by asking the user to set an empty directory into which it starts duplicating your ebooks - which is insane as a default behaviour if the user already has a managed library, on a server, working with numerous other Android,Windows and Linux viewers.

It should just index them, rather than trying to be a file manager.

Calibre also doesn't have a built-in cbr/.cbz reader and calls the default pdf reader assuming it can read those formats as well.

For now I've downloaded MComix from sourceforge - but its indexing is slow.

[ThruHammer]

Not a user, but, maybe Ubooquity better serves your needs.

[linuxunix]

Can't open the book, saying that there is no --no-sandbox, but adding --no-sandbox, it can't be recognized, and the software interface can be opened, but the book can't be seen

[oldaolgeezer]

Hi linuxunix:

You didn't say which version of Calibre you are trying but,
in the early days of fossapup64, which loaded Calibre version 5.x
and newer, I discovered Calibre 5.x uses qt5 libraries.

I found a work-a-round of making two small scripts to supply a
needed parameter for both: /opt/calibre/calibre and the very
useful Calibre utility program: /opt/calibre/ebook-viewer

see here: viewtopic.php?p=6415#p6415

(Perhaps that might help you even if you are not using fossapup64.)

Shortly after that post, 666philb (fossapup64's developer) provided
a nicer more permanent method of supplying the needed parameter via quickpet >>> fossapup updates.

===

And a small comment for PuppyandCo:

You mentioned that ... Calibre starts off by asking the user to
set an empty directory into which it starts duplicating your ebooks ...

I have no experience with trying to read comic books with Calibre but,
if you wish just to read an ebook on your PC screen (and not convert the ebook from one format to another)
you can drag the individual ebook file (for example .mobi or .epub) to the
no-sandbox-ebook-viewer.sh (or, if using an older version of Calibre software (or 666philb's fossapup64 quickpet update),
drag to the /opt/calibre/ebook-viewer utility itself) and no changes or enlargement is/are made to the Calibre "database".)
(then the Calibre "database" only contains one README ebook made by the first Calibre run: Quick Start Guide - John Schember.epub
no matter how many ebooks you just read that way.)

[mouldy]

I have never been a big fan of Calibre and in old days the easiest way to run it was to run an old SMALLER windows version in WINE, didnt have to fight the library mismatches. Depends on what you wanted to use Calibre for. Its more for organizing and converting formats than as a ebook reader, least it never impressed me as a particularly good ebook reader.

I will say it has some capabilities not easily duplicated. Once you have latest version installed, you can open a terminal and use the "ebook-convert" command to convert various formats of ebooks and text files (like rtf or pdf) to ebook format you desire. Without the gui overhead and clunkiness.

They do have a script at their website to download and install latest linux Calibre with its own set libraries to avoid mismatch. And sure there are appimage, and other prepackaged versions with all libraries too. If you are not needing for example to install some unofficial de-DRM plugins and just want it as library organizer and reader, the older much smaller versions work fine, well the old windows version in WINE. I imagine library hell with old linux versions. Some of old windows software works better in WINE than in modern versions windows.

[mouldy]

Just in case anybody is interested, I found Calibre 0.4.x windows version (linux version about same size there too but its going to need libraries not available on newer linux) here: http://www.utterlyinsane.org/calibre/ 24M! Just saying if you have WINE already installed and just want Calibre for ebook organizer and reader, well there you go. I am so not impressed with mega bloat of modern software.