is there a guide for how to use an ereader in linux?

[Alexander Turcic]

Originally Posted by HarryT

It's not a resource hog; it simply requires specific hardware capabilities in the CPU which older CPUs don't support.

Ahh, it's how QT5 has been compiled by default? I guess that should be possible to fix by recompiling the source and specifically excluding the missing CPU flags (like -no-sse2 -no-sse -no-mmx, etc.).

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Alexander Turcic

Ahh, it's how QT5 has been compiled by default? I guess that should be possible to fix by recompiling the source and specifically excluding the missing CPU flags (like -no-sse2 -no-sse -no-mmx, etc.).

I don't know for sure, but that sounds like a reasonable explanation, certainly.

[kacir]

Originally Posted by rcentros

... a new computer from Best Buy. I know I wouldn't buy one from a retail store.

You can buy a good computer in BestBuy, for a good price. You just have to watch the sale shelves like a hawk and view each sale with a very critical eye. Once a month there might be an interesting sale.
The vast majority of sales are good only when compared with the other deals in that store.

I personally would put together something using newegg.

Originally Posted by BWinmill

I never understood why people hate it so deeply that they reject Windows 8.x altogether.

I am one of those people that hated the metro tiles with a passion. I could get over metro tiles themselves (even if they are not hierarchical). Part of the reason was it was rammed down our collective throats despite loud protests.
It was the rest of the system that was the last straw and made me to update to Mint Linux.

I have no problem to adapting to new and strange environments. I worked in CDE in Unix, Photon in QNX, now very obsolete strange Window Managers in Linux 15 years ago. Yet I hated Unity, Gnome 3, KDE 4.0 wit a passion. All those forced me to migrate to something else.
And I still strongly dislike the ribbon interface in Office, even after being forced to use that thing for quite a long time.

Originally Posted by Gregg Bell

This notion that my computer's hardware isn't sufficient to run the latest versions of Sigil and Calibre and QT5. Is this for absolute certain?

No. It is not certain. You have to try.
You already have the computer with Linux installed, so why don't you try running Calibre and Sigil?
They worst thing that can happen is that they will not work and you come back with an error message and ask for help.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by kacir

You can buy a good computer in BestBuy, for a good price. You just have to watch the sale shelves like a hawk and view each sale with a very critical eye. Once a month there might be an interesting sale.
The vast majority of sales are good only when compared with the other deals in that store.

I personally would put together something using newegg.

I don't like the consumer versions of Dell, HP, etc. I like the business class machines -- they're more solid. There's just about zero chance I would buy a computer from Best Buy or any retail store. I used to build my own computers (RE: New Egg), but the cost of new and used business (Optiplex) Dells has changed my view on this. Of course I've never put together a high-end gaming PC (I don't play games), nor do I care if I have cutting edge hardware. Linux does well on older hardware.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Gregg Bell

This notion that my computer's hardware isn't sufficient to run the latest versions of Sigil and Calibre and QT5. Is this for absolute certain? Because, as I said, my computer works great as it is. It meets all my needs. But if I'm not going to be able to use the latest versions of Sigil and Calibre, yeah, that would be a problem.

I would get a newer computer, probably a refurbished Dell with Windows 7 on it but what kind of specs (hard drive, RAM, processor speed, etc.) am I going to need to comfortably run QT5 and the newer versions of software (at least for the foreseeable future)?

Get at least 4gigs of ram (8gigs if possible) and a decent sized hard drive. I'd go with 1TB or larger. You want one that has room for expansion meaning room for more hard drive space and room for more memory. You want one that uses DDR3 memory. You want it to be compatible with Windows 8.1. You don't have to run Windows 8.1, but if it is compatible, then you can run Qt5 and thus the latest Calibre and Sigil.

Originally Posted by Shades

But then why can't the OS make use of new features when they are there and not use those features when they're not? Oh, that's just planned obsolescence on the part of the OS, isn't it.

Not really. Judging from the system requirements, Windows 8 will run on systems with a Pentium IV or later and Windows 7 will run on a Pentium III or later. In other words, Microsoft was supporting roughly 10 year old processors.

As for selectively using features, that gets messy. Linux gets around the problem by being open source. Distributions choose a target architecture for both the OS and applications, then compile for that target. As long as everything is written in a high level language, and the compiler supports it, it usually works out well. In a few cases they will go as far as implementing missing CPU features in software (such as floating point for certain ARM processors as well as really old Intel processors), but that is an exception rather than a rule.

Microsoft doesn't really have those options. Even though they control the source code for Windows and could probably recompile it to target older processors, they have no control over third-party applications. That would make things confusing for the end user and more difficult for application developers. Some applications would simply refuse to run, since they would be using CPU extensions. Other applications would offer dramatically different levels of performance between two machines, since Windows would be utilizing the CPU extensions in some cases but not in others. On top of that, selectively using CPU extensions means that Microsoft would have to implement a mechanism to do so. While that is very much possible, it would add to both the complexity and cost of development.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by KevinBurke

He could always run a version if windows in a virtual machine that supports USB passthrough in Linux.

Thank you for mentioning USB and VM. I remember people using a VM and bricking their Reader on a firmware update. There were messages about this on MR. It's because the VM did not give enough time/resources to the USB and thus, things failed and the Reader bricked. So it is a bad idea to use a VM where you need reliable USB access.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by rcentros

I'm guessing your computer is not 12 years old.

My computer is about 6 years old. It runs with an AMD Athlon XP dual-core processor that does have all the instructions to run Windows 8.1 and Qt5. I'm running Windows 7 on the desktop.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Alexander Turcic

I didn't know Qt5 was such a resource hog? (makes it almost sound like .NET )

Qt5 is not a resource hog, but it needs a processor that will run Qt5. If the processor is capable of running Windows 8.1, it's capable of running Qt5.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by BWinmill

Not really. Judging from the system requirements, Windows 8 will run on systems with a Pentium IV or later and Windows 7 will run on a Pentium III or later. In other words, Microsoft was supporting roughly 10 year old processors.

Windows 8.1 is what I said. Windows 8.1 requires a more modern processor then Windows 8.

[PeterT]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Windows 8.1 is what I said. Windows 8.1 requires a more modern processor then Windows 8.

Huh? I don't think so... http://windows.microsoft.com/en-ca/w...m-requirements

As far as I can see they require the same

AHHH... ok... I see this now:

Atomic changes
That issue is Windows 8.1’s sudden need for CMPXCHG16b support in the 64-bit version. CMPXCHG16b allows for atomic memory exchanges. While modern 64-bit processors support CMPXCHG16b, some older hardware does not—but the requirement wasn’t a must-have for the 64-bit version of Windows 8. Trying to upgrade to Windows 8.1 on newly non-compatible hardware results in a message that your “CPU does not support CompareExchange 128.”

http://www.pcworld.com/article/20586...windows-8.html

[theducks]

I bought a refurb Dell Optiplex 780 mid tower, from Walmart.com (~$300)
W7 Pro SP1, 1T HD, 8G RAM, core 2 Duo (64bit) 3GHz, PCI-e, PCI-e16
(windows Experience 4.8)
(Optiplex is a business class system)

The only thing I missed, was that the Power supply is kind of wimpy (250W) and I could not use most of the medium performance Graphic cards sold at the local Fry's
No problems running stock Calibre or Sigil

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by kacir

I am one of those people that hated the metro tiles with a passion. I could get over metro tiles themselves (even if they are not hierarchical). Part of the reason was it was rammed down our collective throats despite loud protests.
It was the rest of the system that was the last straw and made me to update to Mint Linux.

The Metro interface was clearly designed for use with a touchscreen, on which it works extremely well (I have a Surface Pro and like it a lot on that), but it's a pain to use with a mouse, I agree.

The good news with Win 8.1 is that you never see it if you don't want to. You can configure the system to boot straight into the desktop, and to have the old "Start" menu.

[latepaul]

Originally Posted by Alexander Turcic

Ahh, it's how QT5 has been compiled by default? I guess that should be possible to fix by recompiling the source and specifically excluding the missing CPU flags (like -no-sse2 -no-sse -no-mmx, etc.).

Yep. Although from what I've been reading it seems that compiling with no-sse2 means QT5 may not perform as well.

Also it seems that it's possible for Linux distros to provide both an SSE and non-SSE version of the relevant library. See here for a good (technical) summary of the issue, and here for a related bug report.

It looks like Ubuntu - and therefore Xubuntu - is using this mechanism. HOWEVER Calibre supplies its own QT5 libraries so you'd probably need to build Calibre yourself. Sigil I think would use the system libraries if possible.

All of which is fascinating to some like me, but probably a bit of a tangent on a thread where we're discussing what's easy.

Oh and Greg, since you're already running Linux. You can check your CPU capability easily with:

cat /proc/cpuinfo

Look for sse2 in the output. HTH.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by HarryT

The Metro interface was clearly designed for use with a touchscreen, on which it works extremely well (I have a Surface Pro and like it a lot on that), but it's a pain to use with a mouse, I agree.

The good news with Win 8.1 is that you never see it if you don't want to. You can configure the system to boot straight into the desktop, and to have the old "Start" menu.

To have the old start menu, you do need a program such as Classic Start Menu. Otherwise, you do not get a proper start menu. A proper start menu is not coming back until Windows 10 is released.