Help with Calibre Portable and Linux

[bambuko]

Thanks for that!
"...making an fstab rule for that drive mounting it with a umask of 000..."
the only problem I have with this suggestion is that it requires modifications to the "host" machine, which means (at least as far as I am concerned) that it is no longer portable.

All the changes/modifications should be done to the script in portable drive, to allow it to be used with any Linux machine without making any changes to that machine.

My idea of portable calibre is that it is totally isolated installation on portable drive, which works without changing anything on the machine it is temporarily connected to.

I will do bit more experimenting in few days when I get my new usb drive and have time.

[eschwartz]

And by default external drives are usually mounted noexec, so you cannot run executables and scripts.

Windows is all set up by default -- they need to be. Linux is usually setup so you have to specifically allow things.

It is an easy and permanent fix.

[bambuko]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

And by default external drives are usually mounted noexec, so you cannot run executables and scripts.

I did run few experiments and:
in Puppy Linux I can use FAT32 usb stick and it is perfectly happy to run shell script in the terminal (so I guess it is not the "usual" way of doing things, but Puppy is pretty unique)
in LinuxMint, as you say - the same FAT32 stick mounts noexec and will not run the script whatever I try.

So then I formatted the usb stick to ext2 and made sure that all the stuff on it is rwx for everybody and all is fine, without any addtional fstab rules etc.
The only pain is that copying my large library to ext2 takes forever (and I mean it - no exxageration) compared to FAT32, but... with stick formatted to ext2 (or I guess ext3) and chmod to make it open to everybody I can plug it into any Linux machine and it runs - no questions asked.
So I guess I am happy with that

btw - I have read the links you have included about umask for external drive and can feel a lot of sympathy for the frustrations expressed by the posters on ubuntu forum

That's one of the reasons I like Puppy Linux so much (really no nonsense distro that assumes the people running it have brains and use them and don't need to be "protected" from themselves )
but, it has limitations and sometimes I have to use "grown-up" distros, but it's hard work

[eschwartz]

Well, there are different modes of thought.

What happens as the library is used -- do new files continue to get set with 777 permissions? I believe it is *supposed* to have the usual restrictive umask.

Perhaps the umask should be set in the script. Then then any files created by subsequent processes should be set with more lenient permissions.

[bambuko]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

... Perhaps the umask should be set in the script. Then then any files created by subsequent processes should be set with more lenient permissions.

That's what I was hoping for
and it would be my preferred solution
and this is what has been suggested to me on: LinuxMint forum

btw, what do you think about this (as a solution to using FAT32):
ubuntu forum - Unable to run shell script

[eschwartz]

See my latest update. Also note that I had previously gotten my as-of-then changes merged, so now I need to submit a second patch!

The problem with patching udisks-daemon is it isn't very portable either... and has ramifications outside the one drive you need it for. I would go with umask.

[bambuko]

I have tested it now on different machines and different distros - it all works fine, apart from:

Failed to initialize plugin: ISBNDB (1, 0, 0)
Failed to initialize plugin: <class 'calibre.ebooks.metadata.sources.isbndb.ISBNDB'>

but this doesn't seem to cause any problems?
I don't know if it has anything to do with the shell, or (more likely not?)

Would be nice if someone else could test it as well, but afaic it's a good one
thank you.

[eschwartz]

You're welcome. And no, I have no idea why that plugin would randomly refuse to load -- but if you don't use ISBNdb the it is no big deal anyway.

I assume it is happening because of calibre itself (whyever that be) not liking being on a flashdrive, perhaps if you submitted a bugreport Kovid could figure it out but perhaps you don't care...

[bambuko]

No,
a) I don't care much about this plugin
b) it happens in one distro, but not in another

So thank you again, and I hope I am not the only one who found it useful

[BetterRed]

The ISBNDB PI requires you have an account there (they're free) - but given you don't want it you could try disabling it.

BR

[eschwartz]

I don't have a key, and I don't get messages that the plugin couldn't be initialized.

Anyway -- disabling or failing to load, either way it isn't being used, which in practice is all that matters.

[BetterRed]

bambuko might be like me - doesn't like sp/c-urious error messages, so I thought disabling it might overcome a bit of OCDishness.

I don't have a key and I have it disabled. Interestingly it's the only PI that is disabled and I've no idea why. It's been like that for a 'long time', I must have done it for a reason. I do almost no metadata downloading, so its a bit odd.

And a 'long time' ago I used calibre on Windows and Mint - I wonder of my disabling that particular PI had anything to do with my Mint installation - can't recall, but its possible.

BR

[bambuko]

ha, ha
OCD (or obsessively anal ) that sounds like me
Yes - the error message only happens on Mint.
I never experience it on Puppy (or XP).
I put it down to the difference between two rather than Calibre problem.
Probably something to do with permissions again?

[bambuko]

Further update:
Tried it with PClinuxOS LXDE and it fails if I run as user, but is perfectly happy if I run it as root.
No biggie - I am happy to run it as root

[eschwartz]

Good to hear it is mostly working, would love to hear back if you ever figure out the problem.

Just how does it fail, though?