New to Kobo: How to start?

[bopuc]

Hi everyone
Finally got a Kobo device (Libra 2) and coming from the trauma of Kindle (my gen1 Oasis has been in airplane mode since I unboxed it), I haven't even turned the device on yet for fear of un-breakable updates etc…

How do things work in Kobo land? Do I need to fear the official softwares?
I manage everything from Calibre, so am ok if the device never connects outside my home W/LAN.

What do I need to know before I plug this thing in or set up the wifi connection?
🙏🏼

[rashkae]

Absolutely no need to fear the official softwares. Kobo's are not locked in any way, and you can free install any firmware you want... from all of Kobo's previous versions, (as far back as since your device existed, so you can't really install firmware from before Libra 2 existed.) to completely custom tarballs you make yourself. (not sure if there is any existing maintained projects, but nothing stopping them either.)

The only limitation here is that since the Libra 2 can't be opened and drive removed without some level of destruction to the device, it's at your own risk if you install something that can not boot.

[Sirtel]

You don't even need to register your Kobo unless you want to; you can use the sideloaded mode without once connecting to wifi.

Otherwise it's pretty much as Rashkae said - no need to fear the firmware or the updates, as you can always downgrade very easily. So you can try out an update and go back if you happen not to like it.

[Karellen]

Originally Posted by bopuc

I manage everything from Calibre, so am ok if the device never connects outside my home W/LAN.
����

My Wifi is permanently off and never had a problem. All books are sideloaded from Calibre.
Ensure you install the Kobo Utilities plugin. Though the plugin no longer advises when a new update is available.

Originally Posted by Sirtel

You don't even need to register your Kobo unless you want to;

Unless things have changed since I purchased my Libra2 2 years ago that is not a correct statement. I was led to believe that also when I first joined the forum, and it turns out you cannot use your Kobo unless it is registered. I know you can just add a dummy name right, but that is the name used to create the account at the Kobo site.

[John F]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

You don't even need to register your Kobo unless you want to; you can use the sideloaded mode without once connecting to wifi.

...

Originally Posted by Karellen

...

Unless things have changed since I purchased my Libra2 2 years ago that is not a correct statement. I was led to believe that also when I first joined the forum, and it turns out you cannot use your Kobo unless it is registered. I know you can just add a dummy name right, but that is the name used to create the account at the Kobo site.

I believe things have changed. Search for "SideloadedMode".

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by Karellen

Unless things have changed since I purchased my Libra2 2 years ago that is not a correct statement. I was led to believe that also when I first joined the forum, and it turns out you cannot use your Kobo unless it is registered. I know you can just add a dummy name right, but that is the name used to create the account at the Kobo site.

The sideloaded mode was introduced in January 2022, I think.

[Karellen]

Originally Posted by John F

I believe things have changed. Search for "SideloadedMode".

Originally Posted by Sirtel

The sideloaded mode was introduced in January 2022, I think.

Oh, right. I obviously missed that.
Thanks

[bopuc]

Sweet, thank you everyone.

[redacted]

Finding resources to bypass registration etc… This place is amazing but also… overwhelming haha

Excited!

[bopuc]

When sending epubs to the Kobo, does "Send to device" process the the files somehow? In the "Jobs" window I saw mention of a Conversion going on? When I check on the Kobo's drive, the file's still an epub.
Sorry if these are basic questions ��

[Quoth]

Depends which Kobo driver you use and settings in extended driver. I use epubs. But your setup might be converting to kepubs on the fly, which are slightly different and use a different Renderer on the ereader. There are pluses and minus (pros & cons) to kepub.

[bopuc]

Thank you @Quoth. Searching around and it appears so.
Too bad The Knowledge is seemingly scattered across a million posts :\

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by bopuc

Thank you @Quoth. Searching around and it appears so.
Too bad The Knowledge is seemingly scattered across a million posts :\

You could load both epub and kepub on your Kobo and decide which you like better. The main pros and cons are:

-- Epubs have better typography, particularly word spacing. Ligatures and kerning are enabled for epubs by default, for kepubs they can be enabled in the configuration file, if you care about such things. There is a patch for improving word spacing in kepubs.

-- Images can be zoomed in kepubs, but not in epubs. Nothing can be done about that, as far as I know.

-- Epubs honor widows and orphans specified in the book css, which can result in large gaps at the bottom of the page. There are ways around that (by setting the widows/orphans to 1 in the css and adding a couple of lines to the Kobo conf file).

-- the epub renderer uses Adobe page numbers. The kepub renderer uses 1 screen=1 page; this means that if you change your font size, margins, line spacing et al, the overall page count will change as well. With epubs the overall page count remains always the same.

[John F]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

You could load both epub and kepub on your Kobo and decide which you like better. The main pros and cons are:

-- Epubs have better typography, particularly word spacing. Ligatures and kerning are enabled for epubs by default, for kepubs they can be enabled in the configuration file, if you care about such things. There is a patch for improving word spacing in kepubs.

-- Images can be zoomed in kepubs, but not in epubs. Nothing can be done about that, as far as I know.

-- Epubs honor widows and orphans specified in the book css, which can result in large gaps at the bottom of the page. There are ways around that (by setting the widows/orphans to 1 in the css and adding a couple of lines to the Kobo conf file).

-- the epub renderer uses Adobe page numbers. The kepub renderer uses 1 screen=1 page; this means that if you change your font size, margins, line spacing et al, the overall page count will change as well. With epubs the overall page count remains always the same.

And it is easier to tap on footnotes with kepubs?

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by John F

And it is easier to tap on footnotes with kepubs?

Possibly; I haven't read anything with footnotes for a long time, so I no longer remember how it was.

[Aleron Ives]

Originally Posted by John F

And it is easier to tap on footnotes with kepubs?

Yes, the footnote popup window is only available for KEPUB, as is the ability to rapidly turn pages. With EPUB, you're stuck with 1 tap/click = 1 page turned.