Update Advice for Calibre AppImage?

[Ces33]

I have very limited space on my laptop running linux mint, so I try to keep as much on portable storage as possible. Thus, I'm using an appimage of Calibre 3.18 on an SD card. (The calibre library it connects to is also on that SD card.)

Any suggestions for how best to update it to 4.16.0? I have no coding background, so I don't understand what would happen if I copied the binary install code shown on the downloads page when I have such a weird setup. Does it matter?

[kovidgoyal]

its just files, it doesnt matter where you install it. delete the existing calibre installation folder and use the command to install to that folder again

[Ces33]

Where is the installation folder? Is that another name for the appimage? Or is that a hidden folder that I need to search for?

[kovidgoyal]

There is no appimage. The installation folder is whatever you specified when running the install command from: https://calibre-ebook.com/download_linux

[DNSB]

@Ces33: Is this an appimage built using NuLogic Systems appimage packager recipe for calibre? I thought that support for calibre was dropped years back and it never had anything to do with Kovid Goyal who is calibre's major developer.

As suggested by Kovid, it might be easier to install the newer version of calibre pointing the install to the external drive you are using for your current calibre setup. You will likely need to point to your calibre library when you run calibre after the install.

[Ces33]

Typing and entering into the terminal seemed to place all the files in a folder called /opt. It's one of those folders where I can't seem to delete anything. I can copy, but I can't delete. Is there some trick to it?





I can tell that the version of Calibre in /opt is updated, since it has the new reader. But the version on the SD card still reads as version 3.

[Ces33]

Originally Posted by DNSB

@Ces33: Is this an appimage built using NuLogic Systems appimage packager recipe for calibre? I thought that support for calibre was dropped years back and it never had anything to do with Kovid Goyal who is calibre's major developer.

As suggested by Kovid, it might be easier to install the newer version of calibre pointing the install to the external drive you are using for your current calibre setup. You will likely need to point to your calibre library when you run calibre after the install.

Sorry to have missed this tip earlier! I don't know why It didn't show up for me the other day. I'm going to assume the answer to your question is yes. AppImages were the only mobile form of linux apps that I was aware of, so when I could not find one on the official Calibre site, I went hunting for a third party one. How do I "point" the install to a particular drive? Do I need to alter part of the code I enter into the terminal in the instructions on the linux download page?

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Ces33

Sorry to have missed this tip earlier! I don't know why It didn't show up for me the other day. I'm going to assume the answer to your question is yes. AppImages were the only mobile form of linux apps that I was aware of, so when I could not find one on the official Calibre site, I went hunting for a third party one. How do I "point" the install to a particular drive? Do I need to alter part of the code I enter into the terminal in the instructions on the linux download page?

If you look at the calibre Linux download page, there is advice there about changing the install directory. To quote from that page:

Change /opt to whatever directory you want calibre automatically installed to.

sudo -v && wget -nv -O- https://download.calibre-ebook.com/linux-installer.sh | sudo sh /dev/stdin install_dir=/opt

You might also want to look at the isolated install option which is probably the closest to a portable install using the installer shell script.

[Ces33]

Originally Posted by DNSB

If you look at the calibre Linux download page, there is advice there about changing the install directory. To quote from that page:

Change /opt to whatever directory you want calibre automatically installed to.

sudo -v && wget -nv -O- https://download.calibre-ebook.com/linux-installer.sh | sudo sh /dev/stdin install_dir=/opt

You might also want to look at the isolated install option which is probably the closest to a portable install using the installer shell script.

Ah, okay! I didn't understand what that bit was saying the first time around. If I want an isolated install inside of a different directory, which line of code should I enter first? The line about changing the location or the one about isolating the install?

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Ces33

Ah, okay! I didn't understand what that bit was saying the first time around. If I want an isolated install inside of a different directory, which line of code should I enter first? The line about changing the location or the one about isolating the install?

The isolated install is a single line with isolated=y added to the end. In the sample from Kovid's page, it points to your home directory (~/) with the install done in the calibre-bin directory (effectively /home/yourname/calibre-bin)

sudo -v && wget -nv -O- https://download.calibre-ebook.com/linux-installer.sh | sudo sh /dev/stdin install_dir=/opt

wget -nv -O- https://download.calibre-ebook.com/linux-installer.sh | sh /dev/stdin install_dir=~/calibre-bin isolated=y

I suspect that if you are not installing inside your home directory, you will need to add the 'sudo -v && ' before the wget and 'sudo ' before the sh /dev/ after the pipe |.

[Ces33]

I'm probably gonna still need to go look at some tutorials before I can be confident of what commands I'm entering (I'm just too new to using the command line). But I wanted to thank you both for breaking it down so far for me.