Forma How can I read ePubs from EBSCOhost (academic library) on my Kobo?

[droopy]

I tried both VirtualBox and Wine (and VMWare) and just gave up on them at various points, but kept trying again. I'll use VirtualBox-Win10 just for those ebooks that can't go directly onto my Kobo... those books where ADE comes to the rescue.

rcentros, if you get Wine-ADE working on your Mint 19.1, do let us know. By the way, are you on Cinnamon or MATE?

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by droopy

rcentros, if you get Wine-ADE working on your Mint 19.1, do let us know. By the way, are you on Cinnamon or MATE?

Mostly Cinnamon now, but I've used Mate for years.

[droopy]

Originally Posted by rcentros

Mostly Cinnamon now, but I've used Mate for years.

I'm on Cinnamon too. I'm curious why you haven't upgraded to 19.2

[DrLimu]

Originally Posted by droopy

DrLimu, thanks for your comment. I was following the workarounds too on WineHQ, but ADE crashes on me. Which Linux distro are you using? Can you tell me what terminal commands exactly, from start to finish, you used? Thanks.

I double-clicked ADE_4.5_Installer.exe, and I get this:

Here's the "backtrace.txt" file that I was given an option to save:

Unhandled exception: page fault on read access to 0x00000000 in 32-bit code (0x10001559).

I'm using Manjaro, but there are some reports at wineHQ of it working with ubuntu which should be similar to Mint.

Make sure you have installed winbind (sudo apt install winbind according to wineHQ) and Winetricks.

First create a new wineprefix (you may change the path to whatever you like). If you have an existing one with the same name it may be a good idea to delete it first.

WINEPREFIX="$HOME/.wineADE" wine wineboot

Install dotnet4 and mscorefonts using winetricks:

WINEPREFIX="$HOME/.wineADE" winetricks corefonts dotnet40

Navigate to the location of your ADE-download in the terminal (eg cd ~Downloads) and run the installer:

WINEPREFIX="$HOME/.wineADE" wine ADE_4.5_Installer.exe

Run the winetricks fix for rendering bugs:

WINEPREFIX="$HOME/.wineADE" winetricks ddr=gdi

Hopefully this works.

Edit:

I checked out a bit more, I think the problem might be that filehippo gives you the latest version of ADE.

[DrLimu]

Ok, just for fun I tried Mint 19.2 in a VM and the problem is solved by using the development version of Wine. Note that the one in the mint repos is very old, but the instructions found in the last post here installs it from wineHQ. I also used the latest version of winetricks, see here for instructions. After that the commands above worked with the latest version of ADE. Authorization and downloading DRM-encumbered epubs work.

As I was saying, very easy to install.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by droopy

I'm on Cinnamon too. I'm curious why you haven't upgraded to 19.2

My desktop has Linux Mint 19.1 because that was the current version when I installed Linux. I'm still using Mint 18.2 on this laptop. I used 17.1 on my old desktop until it reached EOL this past April. I figure if it works I don't "fix" it. Besides, I'm lazy.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by rcentros

Yeah, but then you have to use Windows! I would rather find a workaround and keep Linux.

I have a workaround. That's to forget Linux and stick with Windows. I prefer not to have to tryt o play games to get the software I want to use to work and it does. It just works.

[DrLimu]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I have a workaround. That's to forget Linux and stick with Windows. I prefer not to have to tryt o play games to get the software I want to use to work and it does. It just works.

And Indesign just works for producing epubs, forget about editing html

I don't now how much you know about Linux (using Tux the Linux mascot as your avatar suggests some knowledge, although I can't see why you would recommend using Windows in that case), so maybe I should point out that Linux is just the kernel, what we usually mean by saying Linux is a distribution of the kernel and other software (distro for short), and often GNU/Linux is used to denote the desktop distros. Hence there's not really one Linux, for example the Kobo readers and android phones both use Linux.

On Manjaro, the distro I'm using, installation was easy, I just had to enter 6 commands into the terminal to get it working. I also figured out how to install it in Linux Mint in about 40 minutes, which isn't that bad considering I'm no Linux expert (only used it for 5 months) and I had to figure out some Mint specific stuff since I never used it before. I'll probably save more time than that in a year by having automatic updates of calibre.

So I wouldn't say this is a major reason favoring Windows, and there are also many good reasons some people prefer Linux. Personally I got fed up by the forced updates ruining things (luckily I dodged the 1809 update until it was fixed, which would probably have deleted all my documents), having to use third party tools to disable all the telemetry and ads in the start menu after each update, and having less and less control over the system. Not that there's anything wrong with using Windows if that's what you like best of coarse, I still have it installed in case i want to play some games that doesn't work on Linux, but I have no need to use it for anything related to ebooks.

[droopy]

Originally Posted by rcentros

My desktop has Linux Mint 19.1 because that was the current version when I installed Linux. I'm still using Mint 18.2 on this laptop. I used 17.1 on my old desktop until it reached EOL this past April. I figure if it works I don't "fix" it. Besides, I'm lazy.

I'm lazy too. I probably would not upgrade if I was forced to use the USB installation method. but I'm okay and feel motivated enough to upgrade using the update manager which happens all within my computer's internal storage.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by DrLimu

And Indesign just works for producing epubs, forget about editing html

If you o use InDesign, you really do have to look at the code and most likely edit it. I've seen what eBooks look like under the hood coming from InDesign and they are not nice. They are a bit of mess.

I don't now how much you know about Linux (using Tux the Linux mascot as your avatar suggests some knowledge, although I can't see why you would recommend using Windows in that case), so maybe I should point out that Linux is just the kernel, what we usually mean by saying Linux is a distribution of the kernel and other software (distro for short), and often GNU/Linux is used to denote the desktop distros. Hence there's not really one Linux, for example the Kobo readers and android phones both use Linux.

On Manjaro, the distro I'm using, installation was easy, I just had to enter 6 commands into the terminal to get it working. I also figured out how to install it in Linux Mint in about 40 minutes, which isn't that bad considering I'm no Linux expert (only used it for 5 months) and I had to figure out some Mint specific stuff since I never used it before. I'll probably save more time than that in a year by having automatic updates of calibre.

So I wouldn't say this is a major reason favoring Windows, and there are also many good reasons some people prefer Linux. Personally I got fed up by the forced updates ruining things (luckily I dodged the 1809 update until it was fixed, which would probably have deleted all my documents), having to use third party tools to disable all the telemetry and ads in the start menu after each update, and having less and less control over the system. Not that there's anything wrong with using Windows if that's what you like best of coarse, I still have it installed in case i want to play some games that doesn't work on Linux, but I have no need to use it for anything related to ebooks.

Prior to Calibre 4.x, there have been more support issues with Linux and OS X then Windows and there are more Windows users then Linux and OS X combined.

That said, I do know about Linux and prefer Windows. I prefer when things just work. I'm not a fan of VM. I would suggest dual-booting and use a proper Windows 64-bit.

[gldnbrwncouches]

Another Linux user here, I use Wine to manage my ADE install on Linux. If you aren't very familiar with Wine usage, you can always use a helper program like Lutris to install ADE.

On another note, while Windows "just works" for some, Mac does for others, and Linux does for me. I would flounder if I had to use Windows for work (or anything, but that's just me).

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by gldnbrwncouches

Another Linux user here, I use Wine to manage my ADE install on Linux. If you aren't very familiar with Wine usage, you can always use a helper program like Lutris to install ADE.

On another note, while Windows "just works" for some, Mac does for others, and Linux does for me. I would flounder if I had to use Windows for work (or anything, but that's just me).

Actually, Catalina makes OS X no longer just work. They have the signed vs. unsigned installers so if you don't know the work around you would not be able ot install some things like Sigil and Calibre. Also, no more 32-bit programs so that means no more ADE 2.0.1.

[MGlitch]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Actually, Catalina makes OS X no longer just work. They have the signed vs. unsigned installers so if you don't know the work around you would not be able ot install some things like Sigil and Calibre. Also, no more 32-bit programs so that means no more ADE 2.0.1.

Actually Calibre opens just fine on Catalina, Gatekeeper still pops up but there’s an option right there in the error message to open it anyway the same as it’s been for awhile. I’m going to go out on on branch and guess the same is true for sigil.

Yes outdated apps no longer work. Of course it’s not like Ade doesn’t have a 64bit version and for quite some time now. 32bit deserved to be discontinued. There’s no reason to carry on support for apps for which the hardware equivalent has been dropped some time ago. I’m sure you’ll want to go on about why a company should endlessly support outdated things, but they shouldn’t.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Actually, Catalina makes OS X no longer just work. They have the signed vs. unsigned installers so if you don't know the work around you would not be able ot install some things like Sigil and Calibre. Also, no more 32-bit programs so that means no more ADE 2.0.1.

Hmmm.... I run OS X in a VM which is a bit of an edge case but so far since I updated from Mojave to Catalina, I haven't found many issues running my programs. This may change in Jan., 2020 when Apple is supposed to be locking down Catalina but for now, it works for the 64 bit programs I've tested. I may miss some 32 bit apps but then I still miss some 16 bit and 8 bit apps.

As for ADE 2.0.1, I have found very few sites that are using the newer hardened ADEPT DRM so using a new 64bit version of ADE is not a big issue.

[DrLimu]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

If you o use InDesign, you really do have to look at the code and most likely edit it. I've seen what eBooks look like under the hood coming from InDesign and they are not nice. They are a bit of mess.

Probably looks fine in ADE at least. That's actually my point, just working is fine, but I rather spend at little more time to learn some CSS and html and get something cleaner that I have more control over.

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Prior to Calibre 4.x, there have been more support issues with Linux and OS X then Windows and there are more Windows users then Linux and OS X combined.

I would expect more bugs as there's more heterogeneity among the distros compared to Windows, but there are other reasons also like the main devs being on Windows (not sure if this is the case for calibre, but I seen it with other software), Linux user being more prone to report bugs, and some distros having old and sometimes bad versions in their repositories. That's actually the reason I chose Manjaro over Mint, at the time Manjaro had the latest calibre and Mint a very old version.

Originally Posted by JSWolf

That said, I do know about Linux and prefer Windows. I prefer when things just work. I'm not a fan of VM. I would suggest dual-booting and use a proper Windows 64-bit.

Unlike Linux users who really hate things working! I don't bother with VM:s either. My use case for ADE is opening it for 30 seconds to let it download a book and occasionally transferring it to my Kobo, both which works fine in Wine. I haven't experienced any bugs in calibre or sigill. I don't see why I, or most other people, would need to boot to Windows for anything ebooks.

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Actually, Catalina makes OS X no longer just work. They have the signed vs. unsigned installers so if you don't know the work around you would not be able ot install some things like Sigil and Calibre. Also, no more 32-bit programs so that means no more ADE 2.0.1.

I was worried of Microsoft going in the same direction with their store and UWP, but they seem to have changed their minds (at least for now). But it's still a good reason to use an open OS, if the company making your distro make changes you don't like you just switch to a different one, or someone will create a fork that suits you.