Any interest in Kobo Desktop for Linux?

[readingwonder]

Originally Posted by luqmaninbmore

and the coupon codes that most other retailers have abandoned.

If I understand it correctly, you can buy and use Kobo books with any epub ereader, such as the Nook, by way of Adobe Digital Editions. But of course that means you have to have Windows or Mac installed.

And the reason other retailers no longer have coupon codes, and the reason why coupons only work on certain publishers and not others, is because Apple made the major publishers enter into a very greasy agreement in order to put their ebooks on iTunes, saying that they agreed to never discount their ebooks, which is why sometimes the print book version with a discount is less than the ebook version from a major publisher, and why most coupons don't work with major publishers.

But that's another subject entirely.

[luqmaninbmore]

The coupons work for most of the books I am interested in. I just wish the desktop app for linux wasn't broken.

[Solicitous]

Originally Posted by FelixO

Actually I do still have a probelm.
Although the application is installed and working Synaptic thinks it is broken:

olly@molly:/usr/lib/calibre$ sudo apt-get upgrade
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
You might want to run ‘apt-get -f install’ to correct these.
The following packages have unmet dependencies.
kobo-desktop:i386 : Depends: libusb-0.1-4:i386 but it is not installed
Depends: libpng3:i386 but it is not installed
Depends: libxml2:i386 but it is not installed
E: Unmet dependencies. Try using -f.

I fear the system will be unusable in this state since I won't be able to install new packages or updates.
I tried to fix it by using
sudo dpkg --force-depends -i kobo-desktop.deb
but it made no difference :-(

Now I believe, or am under the impression that the Linux build won't allow you to setup a new touch, but hopefully someone may be able to verify it.

I recently bought an original wifi and though I may have to use the desktop app to set it up. I didn't but I did use winecfg to install the kobo desktop app. It worked a treat. In terms of system stability you might find it better as all you need is to install wine from the repository then download the winecfg script, select kobo desktop app, and it will download and install it for you.

I have yet to plug my reader into it yet, but at least us Linux users can use a hack to install a piece of windows software onto our Linux box so we can interact with a Linux device.

[GoingDown]

Originally Posted by FelixO

Actually I do still have a probelm.
I fear the system will be unusable in this state since I won't be able to install new packages or updates.
I tried to fix it by using
sudo dpkg --force-depends -i kobo-desktop.deb
but it made no difference :-(

You can fix this by manually modifying file /var/lib/dpkg/status (you need to modify it as root or via sudo).

Search entry for the Kobo on the file, and then modify the line Depends: and remove all entries it complains. This way you can get your system updated in future.

[FelixO]

@GoingDown

Thanks! That fixed it. :-)

Happy Christmas, and may the gods shower you with karma!

[meme]

Thanks for the link.

Running Ubuntu 11.04 and using Wine with the the Windows Desktop app worked fine after using winecfg to set the mounted drive type (although I did have to keep winecfg open while I started KoboSetup.exe, otherwise it kept forgetting that I had change it to think the usb drive was a floppy).

I'll add my request that a future version of the Kobo Touch allows setup directly from the Kobo without needing to use a separate computer or desktop software. I imagine that won't happen if at all until a new version of the hardware comes out. Failing that for the current version, a linux version of the Desktop would be nice - but at least its working ok with Wine.

[code933k]

Kobo Desktop 2.1.3 is working fine for me atop Debian Wheezy/sid x86_64
I'm sad this app does not offer anything beyond my actual Kobo Touch, yet I'm grateful I have local copies of my Kobo books and can read for short periods of time on my laptop.

I hope devels at Kobo realize that having proper Linux support and trying to expand their Canada/US centric market is the best bet their company can make -as far as I can tell.

Thanks for the app.

My suggestions:

1. Let the user handle book tags from Kobo Desktop (single dialog/menu). If possible from the device library much better! (i.e., reading, read, favorites and so forth) Books marked as reading after a short check are a hassle.
2. Use openSUSE (actually Novell) BUILD service to pack Kobo Desktop for more GNU/Linux distributions and make package repos available without extra effort on your side (think about it -I can help if needed)

[0verlord]

any one get a 64 bit .deb for Debian??

[GoingDown]

Is there "official" location where to download this?

I have been using Windows version under wine. And although I don't care this so much, I would be willing to experiment.

[code933k]

Originally Posted by 0verlord

any one get a 64 bit .deb for Debian??

No, there is not as far as I know. I could try to compile one at some point but I don't have the time nor the energy right now. However, x86 works as if it was an x86_64 app (fast and no noticeable glitches except no handling of custom fonts at all) which is preferable to Windows emulation by far.

[katosan]

Originally Posted by JCKobo

MobileReaders,
We have an unofficial version of our Desktop software that will run on Debian based Linux distros. We haven't released it officially, but if you would be interested in getting a copy, please send me a PM and I'll try to get you a copy.

Please be sure to include your Distro and CPU architecture - we are currently planning only to release a 32-bit version, but if there is enough interest we might be able to release the 64-bit one as well.

Let us know!

i am using Linux Mint 9 (Gnome) 32 bit. will this help ?
katosan

[katosan]

I used my son's Windows PC to setup Kobo ,but it will not sync on either of my Linux towers ,1 )W/ Mint 9 ,2) with PC linuxOS (LXDE) I was just about to tell my son to
get a refund ,but I might wait and see.
Cheers,
katosan

[Thra11]

1) 64-bit Linux version would have saved a lot of faff when setting up my kobo touch.

2) At least with the Touch and potentially with the other models (inputting text might be too tricky to be worth the bother on the wifi etc.), it should be possible to set up and register the device entirely over wifi.

3) I can understand that windows and OS X might come first in terms of numbers of users, but there is some irony/absurdity in a being unable to configure a linux device using linux.

4) I'm not a big fan of Java, but targetting multiple operating systems, fast/high performance less important? This is what Java is for.

5) If I want to add books to my account from kobo, I can use the website. If I want to read a book, I'm not going to use my computer when I have an ereader. Since the only thing most people want to do with kobo-desktop is register their device/get it to stop telling them it hasn't been set up, why not remove the bloat and create a simple setup utility instead. Less work to be done, hence more likely to actually happen.

Ok, I think that's enough complaining for now

[katosan]

Hi:
With regards to Kobo, If the developers were to make the reader so ,that any platform could install/Synch with it ,that would make life easier.
katosan

[santiagobear]

I sent a private message some time ago, but never got a reply. Are you still letting people have this software?

Originally Posted by JCKobo

MobileReaders,
We have an unofficial version of our Desktop software that will run on Debian based Linux distros. We haven't released it officially, but if you would be interested in getting a copy, please send me a PM and I'll try to get you a copy.

Please be sure to include your Distro and CPU architecture - we are currently planning only to release a 32-bit version, but if there is enough interest we might be able to release the 64-bit one as well.

Let us know!