Official Calibre PPA?

[Ladyrixx]

I was wondering if there was an official Calibre ppa for Ubuntu. I've read on the main page that the version of Calibre in the Ubuntu Software Centre is out of date, and I know that the programme updates every week.

It would be really awesome if there was an official ppa for it, so when it updated I wouldn't have to do back out to the page to update it.

[aleyx]

That would require either (a) a PPA maintainer, or (b) a whole lot of complexity added to Calibre's build system.

And what about those poor RPMers? Not to mention Slackware and Gentoo. ^_^;

I find that running my calibre_update.sh whenever Calibre notifies me is good enough.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by Ladyrixx

I was wondering if there was an official Calibre ppa for Ubuntu. I've read on the main page that the version of Calibre in the Ubuntu Software Centre is out of date, and I know that the programme updates every week.

It would be really awesome if there was an official ppa for it, so when it updated I wouldn't have to do back out to the page to update it.

Make a shell script out of the command line given in the Linux page,. I placed hat onto the menu and attached the 'connect_share.png' icon
When I see the new version message, I can just slide my rodent over it and click

[eschwartz]

I created a script out of it (mine just extracts to ~/bin/calibre/ since I'm using a school system, but whatever) and put it in a crontab to happen every week at 6:00 AM Friday, just hours after calibre is released and before i wake up in the morning. Why bother waiting for the notification?

[aleyx]

Thing is, this would download and install even if the version hasn't changed. I've added a little Python snippet to mine to make sure that what I've got is actually outdated.

Sure, it doesn't waste much bandwidth, but hey, after seeing the downloads stats I've decided that every little bit (hah!) helps.

[Ladyrixx]

Originally Posted by aleyx

Thing is, this would download and install even if the version hasn't changed. I've added a little Python snippet to mine to make sure that what I've got is actually outdated.

Sure, it doesn't waste much bandwidth, but hey, after seeing the downloads stats I've decided that every little bit (hah!) helps.

I don't suppose you could share that? My Python is pretty much non-existent.

[aleyx]

Originally Posted by Ladyrixx

I don't suppose you could share that? My Python is pretty much non-existent.

I will as soon as I get back from work ^^

Meaning, as soon as I get that monster SQL statement to actually work, instead of giving me either too much or no records. Grr.

EDIT:

So, here it is:

calibre-check.py:

#!/usr/bin/env python
## -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
import subprocess, tempfile, sys, os
if sys.version_info[0] > 2:
        import urllib.request as u
else:
        import urllib as u
from distutils.version import LooseVersion as ver


local_version = tempfile.TemporaryFile()
subprocess.call(["calibre-debug", '-c', "import calibre; print (calibre.__version__)"], stdout=local_version)
local_version.seek(0)
local_version = ver(local_version.read()[:-1])
remote_version = ver(u.urlopen('http://calibre-ebook.com/downloads/latest_version').read()[:-1])

if local_version < remote_version:
        sys.exit(0)
else:
        sys.exit(1)

In English: Get Calibre's version string, then get the online version; if the online version is higher, return 0, else return 1.

I'm sure someone can put it in a one-liner and integrate it to the current updater one-liner.

Or maybe integrate that (or a variation) to linux_installer.

Then, calibre-update.sh:

#!/bin/bash
if python calibre-check.py; then
sudo python -c "import sys; py3 = sys.version_info[0] > 2; u = __import__('urllib.request' if py3 else 'urllib', fromlist=1); exec(u.urlopen('http://status.calibre-ebook.com/linux_installer').read()); main(install_dir='/opt')"
else
        echo "Calibre is up-to-date"
fi

Putting calibre-update.sh in a cron running Friday night every few hours would be the next step.

EDIT: newer version of update code here

[eschwartz]

Looks awesome, though really, it is usually updated every Friday. This would only be useful on the odd week that it doesn't get updated. Still, it's cool so I'm gonna use it. Thanks!!!

[kacir]

I usually run update script (manually) when Calibre tells me there is a new version.
I want to visit the download page and read what is new anyway.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by kacir

I usually run update script (manually) when Calibre tells me there is a new version.
I want to visit the download page and read what is new anyway.

But it saves you an extra click. Plus it's cooler.

[aleyx]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

Looks awesome, though really, it is usually updated every Friday. This would only be useful on the odd week that it doesn't get updated. Still, it's cool so I'm gonna use it. Thanks!!!

You're welcome.

Don't forget to customize calibre-update.sh for your particular needs.

For exemple, backup before update:

#!/bin/bash
if python calibre-check.py; then
        . backup-library.sh
        sudo python -c "import sys; py3 = sys.version_info[0] > 2; u = __import__('urllib.request' if py3 else 'urllib', fromlist=1); exec(u.urlopen('http://status.calibre-ebook.com/linux_installer').read()); main(install_dir='/opt')"
else
        echo "Calibre is up-to-date"
fi

Now with acrobatics:

#!/bin/bash
if python calibre-check.py; then
        killall calibre-server
        . backup-library.sh
        sudo python -c "import sys; py3 = sys.version_info[0] > 2; u = __import__('urllib.request' if py3 else 'urllib', fromlist=1); exec(u.urlopen('http://status.calibre-ebook.com/linux_installer').read()); main(install_dir='/opt')"
        calibre-server --port 8080 --restriction Novels --daemonize
        calibre-server --port 8081 --restriction News --daemonize
        calibre-server --port 8082 --restriction DontLetTheKidsSeeThis --daemonize --password=mykidswonteverfindit --username=momndad
else
        echo "Calibre is up-to-date"
fi

Although the three calibre-server commands should rather be in a calibre-servers.sh of their own, so you'll be able to kill/restart whenever you want.
EDIT: newer version of update code here

[aleyx]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

But it saves you an extra click. Plus it's cooler.

Heh, thanks ^_^

Well, all the cool comes from Kovid, Python and bash, really.

For myself, I read the changelog from the RSS post, then I go and run update.sh. Although now that I've just added the checking stuff, I'll probably just add update.sh to my cron and save myself an ssh session.

Oh, and please, for anyone who want to use that bit of code, don't hesitate to report any bug or weird responses. The error checking on this is pretty much absent. For exemple, there's no 404 or other error response handling for http://calibre-ebook.com/downloads/latest_version...

[kovidgoyal]

@aleyx: You can save yourself having to call subprocess to get the current calibre version by running your script using calibre itself, like this:

calibre-debug update-calibre.py

and in update-calibre.py

from calibre.constants import numeric_version
...
the rest of the script should be the same

[aleyx]

That's indeed a lot leaner, especially since numeric_version is already a tuple, so version comparison is pretty straightforward.

Thanks Kovid!

#!/usr/bin/env python
## -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
if sys.version_info[0] > 2:
        import urllib.request as u
else:
        import urllib as u
from calibre.constants import numeric_version

if numeric_version < tuple(map(int, u.urlopen('http://calibre-ebook.com/downloads/latest_version').read()[:-1].split("."))):
        sys.exit(0)
else:
        sys.exit(1)

EDIT: newer version of update code here

[kovidgoyal]

You can also lose the version check since calibre-debug is always python 2