How bad an idea is it to put calibre-portable on my kobo and run it from there?

[TheRealJohnAdams]

Question is exactly what it sounds like. I have a kind of finicky set of settings and plugins that I rely on to manage my kobo library, and it's a pain to keep them updated between my desktop, my work laptop, and my fiancee's computer. I can't install things like syncthing on the work laptop, and I'd rather not on my fiancee's computer.

So my brilliant (idiotic) idea is to keep calibre-portable on my Kobo, treating it like a flash drive. I'm going to create a .calibre folder in the top-level directory of my kobo (the one that contains .kobo, author folders, etc.). That way I will always have calibre available and configured how I like it, whether I'm using my work laptop, my desktop, or my fiancee's laptop.

I have plenty of space on my kobo, so that's not a concern. But I suspect that there is a high risk of database corruption, losing my calibre install when I update the kobo, or similar problems.

Questions:

1. Is this a bad idea? If so, why?
2. Is there anything I need to do to accomplish this safely?
3. Will updating my kobo's firmware delete the .calibre folder?
4. If this would be problematic, are there any similar solutions that could work better?

[DaltonST]

Calibre Portable is for Windows x64. You run Windows on your Kobo? Please post images.

[TheRealJohnAdams]

Originally Posted by DaltonST

Calibre Portable is for Windows x64. You run Windows on your Kobo? Please post images.

To be clear, I'm not trying to get my kobo to run Calibre. I'm trying to use my kobo as a storage device so that when I plug my kobo into any windows laptop, I can run calibre on that laptop.

[ownedbycats]

Originally Posted by DaltonST

Calibre Portable is for Windows x64. You run Windows on your Kobo? Please post images.

I think the OP is just using the Kobo for storage.

EDIT: I'm slow. This happens when leaving the 'post' tab open for half an hour.

[Quoth]

I'd use a decent USB stick, USB SSD or even a USB HDD. Either could be big enough to have the calibre files (esp the HDD) as well as the program and the database.

The Kobo would be rather slow as a USB drive, though some really cheap USB sticks are slower!

[ownedbycats]

Also while not as much a concern, I'd be a biit worried about premature wearing on the SD card.

[JSWolf]

Why can't you install Calibre Portable on your laptop's storage?

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Why can't you install Calibre Portable on your laptop's storage?

I think the OP's objective to reduce the number of gadgets they have to carry - phone , kobo, laptop is one too many.

I'd ditch the phone.

BR

[ownedbycats]

Possibly keep the library on one always-running computer and use calibre-server?

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

I think the OP's objective to reduce the number of gadgets they have to carry - phone , kobo, laptop is one too many.

I'd ditch the phone.

BR

Well, Calibre-Portable won't run on a Kobo. So that's out if that why.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by TheRealJohnAdams

Question is exactly what it sounds like. I have a kind of finicky set of settings and plugins that I rely on to manage my kobo library, and it's a pain to keep them updated between my desktop, my work laptop, and my fiancee's computer. I can't install things like syncthing on the work laptop, and I'd rather not on my fiancee's computer.

Once you have the settings and plugins the way you want on one computer, you can copy the settings directory to the other computers. Also, when a plug-in gets updated, all Calibre installs will get notified. Same with new versions of Calibre. So really, it's very easy. If you need to copy the settings directory, just use a USB stick or microSD card. If you need an SD card, an adapter for the microSD card will do.

It's really very easy to keep the various Calibre installs with the same settings and plugins except if any of the computers need an older version.

[ownedbycats]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Well, Calibre-Portable won't run on a Kobo. So that's out if that why.

It'll run on a computer that the Kobo is connected to. This was already explained.

Another issue I thought of: Kobo would try to import all the books in the portable library. This might have... odd effects.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Well, Calibre-Portable won't run on a Kobo. So that's out if that why.

The OP is NOT expecting to run calibre on the Kobo.

The proposal is use the Kobo as a storage device that gets plugged onto the nearest Windows computer - just as one might do with calibre portable installed on a thumb drive or a pocket SSD drive.

BR

[JimmXinu]

This appeals to my sense of 'clever solution'. I'm kind of surprised I've never heard or thought of the idea before.

Pity I don't know enough about Kobo to actually address your concerns.

It's not a use case that suits me, but I'm going to plug in one of my older Kindles just to try it out.

[TheRealJohnAdams]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

Possibly keep the library on one always-running computer and use calibre-server?

I really wanted to do it this way, since I have a NAS and that makes by far the most sense, but syncing Collections is a must-have feature for me. (Calibre-web syncs collections to Kobo wirelessly, but it has a number of other problems in its current state.)

Originally Posted by Quoth

I'd use a decent USB stick, USB SSD or even a USB HDD. Either could be big enough to have the calibre files (esp the HDD) as well as the program and the database.

The Kobo would be rather slow as a USB drive, though some really cheap USB sticks are slower!

I lose things, unfortunately. Don't think I've ever had a flash drive longer than a month. Speed-wise the Kobo seems to be working okay so far—there just is not a huge amount of I/O involved with transferring ebooks—so I think that concern may not be a problem.

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Why can't you install Calibre Portable on your laptop's storage? ... Once you have the settings and plugins the way you want on one computer, you can copy the settings directory to the other computers. Also, when a plug-in gets updated, all Calibre installs will get notified. Same with new versions of Calibre. So really, it's very easy. If you need to copy the settings directory, just use a USB stick or microSD card. If you need an SD card, an adapter for the microSD card will do.

It's really very easy to keep the various Calibre installs with the same settings and plugins except if any of the computers need an older version.

I did install calibre on my work laptop, and if I had a configuration I was totally happy with, that could be the end of it. But I tend to tinker with things. When I find the time I am going to fix Goodreads syncing, and there are some workflow issues that I want to iron out... it's always something that gets changed, and then I forget to transfer the change over, and then I change something else on the other machine, and once I do that there's no longer an easy way to sync them back up without losing something.

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

It'll run on a computer that the Kobo is connected to. This was already explained.

Another issue I thought of: Kobo would try to import all the books in the portable library. This might have... odd effects.

Spot-on—it did in fact try to import all my calibre files (.txt config files, interface graphics, etc.) as ebooks. That took a while to fix, but apparently there is a built-in option in the Kobo eReader.conf file that lets you set a regex of paths to ignore. So that problem is solved.

(As an aside, I don't plan on keeping the calibre library itself on the Kobo. The main library will live on my desktop—I only need access to the calibre program in case I want to add new books while I'm away from home.)