[perkata]

I have long wanted to carry my library with me, on my phone, but have been stymied by its size (166 gig) and the lack of capable library managers available for Android and IOS devices. I had been using Calibre Companion but was/am reluctant to go to a rent-a-program model.

I was recently playing with a pre-release version of the PinePhone, a cellphone that runs a large variety of linux distributions. I was amazed to find that the Mobian (Mobile Debian) distribution offers through its software store a complete Calibre install and allows the installation of the reader and book editor as separate apps (very handy if you like to search using regex).

To get the installation of Calibre to both download and install, I used the Mobian nightly release of 06 March. Installation was fairly quick and I was able to verify that Calibre would accept new books and allow one to read them. My testing was limited to that as I was interested in testing the phone’s many other potential uses.

Since this is full Calibre, squeezing in the whole UI into a 6" screen has been quite a task, but it is there. The PinePhone runs a complete distribution of linux so you can install LibreOffice and, using the included dock dongle, attach the phone to a monitor and keyboard and use the phone as your computer. Also makes it much more convenient to use Calibre.

For my uses, the PinePhone is not ready to be a daily driver, but it is quite close. Given the speed with which Mobian is updated, I assume that dailydriverness is but a month or two away.