Gregg's Nearly Interminable Adventures in Linux Land

[Gregg Bell]

Originally Posted by avantman42

Gregg,

I'm afraid I can't answer any of your imgur questions. I don't have an account, and haven't used it much.

No problem, Russell. I'm going to explore it. (I'm sure I was being mostly lazy anyway. ) It really is an attractive site. Tons of stuff. I think I'm going to really like it. Like I said, I've heard good things about it but it's nice to be personally introduced to it. Thanks!

[Gregg Bell]

Hey, I've just been setting up all my Kindle ebooks onto Calibre and uploading them to Google Drive. There's all this stuff about stripping the DRM but I don't even know if the ebooks I have DRM. How can you tell in Linux? Somebody said look at Properties but all my ebooks (in Properties) say 'read and write'. Does that mean that they are not DRM? And if they were DRM, would I have been able to get as far along in the process without something stopping me?

[eschwartz]

DRM means the book has encrypted contents, nothing to do with filesystem permissions which is read+write abilities.

As long as you have the tools properly configured from here: http://apprenticealf.wordpress.com all books should be stripped of DRM if they have it.

If you want to tell which books are not yet stripped, you can try opening each one the ones which are encrypted, calibre will not be able to read.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Gregg Bell

Hey, I've just been setting up all my Kindle ebooks onto Calibre and uploading them to Google Drive. There's all this stuff about stripping the DRM but I don't even know if the ebooks I have DRM. How can you tell in Linux? Somebody said look at Properties but all my ebooks (in Properties) say 'read and write'. Does that mean that they are not DRM? And if they were DRM, would I have been able to get as far along in the process without something stopping me?

Where did you get the Kindle books? If you bought them from Amazon, whether they will be encumbered with DRM is a publisher option. Some do, and some don't. If they come from other sources, they probably aren't DRM ridden.

As eschwartz mentioned, if the appropriate third-party plugins are installed, Calibre can strip DRM. They are not provided with Calibre because simply having them is illegal in some jurisdictions.

The Linux Properties are those for the file containing the eBook. Your userid has permission to read and write it. Whether your eBook viewer can successfully open, decrypt, and display the eBook content is something that happens at the applications level. Linux neither knows nor cares.
______
Dennis

[Gregg Bell]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

DRM means the book has encrypted contents, nothing to do with filesystem permissions which is read+write abilities.

As long as you have the tools properly configured from here: http://apprenticealf.wordpress.com all books should be stripped of DRM if they have it.

If you want to tell which books are not yet stripped, you can try opening each one the ones which are encrypted, calibre will not be able to read.

Thanks Boss. Good explanation of DRM. (And a simple way of testing it.) I've known about Alf's thing. Ugh (it looks complicated), now that will be my next project to try to get that going. Thanks.

Boss, thought of something. I got this offer from Kobo for a free ebook. So I went for it. Turned out to be this labyrinthine-like process to just get it. Then the book turned out to have DRM and I had to go to Adobe to get an account. Well, it turned into this endless hassle and I gave up. (The process did make me utterly convinced to never make my books DRM though.) I did save one thing from the Kobo hassle. Honestly I don't know if it can help me get the book (I'd still like to get the book) or not. Maybe you could take a peek. (I'll attach it.) Thanks. I couldn't attach it, so I'll copy and paste it here.

The file is called URLLink.acsm (And I probably got this from Adobe.)

Here's the innards (that I opened in Mousepad):

<fulfillmentToken fulfillmentType="buy" xmlns="http://ns.adobe.com/adept">
<distributor>urn:uuid:18fe3022-eb24-4fd1-8f6c-e63140c013ca</distributor>
<operatorURL>http://acs4.shortcovers.com:8080/fulfillment</operatorURL>
<expiration>2014-02-22T05:49:03-05:00</expiration>
<transaction>c0af04bc-b19f-4541-8da8-15963d69e05c</transaction>
<resourceItemInfo>
<resource>urn:uuid:76030dba-7bdc-4b4c-93b7-b9ce9e1ad11b</resource>
<resourceItem>1</resourceItem>
<metadata>
<dc:title xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/">Write. Publish. Repeat.</dc:title>
<dc:creator xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/">Johnny B. Truant and Sean Platt</dc:creator>
<dc:format xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/">application/epub+zip</dc:format>
<dc:language xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/">en</dc:language>
</metadata>
<src>http://ecimages.shortcovers.com/76030dba-7bdc-4b4c-93b7-b9ce9e1ad11b.epub</src>
<downloadType>simple</downloadType>
</resourceItemInfo>
<hmac>4+LGO6MCcJvRDH+eh2DF3nVMY7Q=</hmac>
</fulfillmentToken>

[Gregg Bell]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

Where did you get the Kindle books? If you bought them from Amazon, whether they will be encumbered with DRM is a publisher option. Some do, and some don't. If they come from other sources, they probably aren't DRM ridden.

As eschwartz mentioned, if the appropriate third-party plugins are installed, Calibre can strip DRM. They are not provided with Calibre because simply having them is illegal in some jurisdictions.

The Linux Properties are those for the file containing the eBook. Your userid has permission to read and write it. Whether your eBook viewer can successfully open, decrypt, and display the eBook content is something that happens at the applications level. Linux neither knows nor cares.
______
Dennis

Hey Dennis. I would say 90% of my books are purchased from Amazon. The rest might be from places like MR or that Gutenberg project or places like that. I haven't run into an Amazon book that's had DRM yet.

Well, at least at this stage I know I've got the ebooks on Calibre and a usb drive. (If Amazon should close down. ) Next up will be trying to set up that plug-in at Alf's. Do you happen to know if that will work retroactively on the books I already have on Calibre? And then when I transfer the books to a usb drive (from Calibre) they should be DRM-free (if they've been stripped of the DRM via Alf's thing, that is), right?

Thanks.

[eschwartz]

The plugin will not retroactively work. After configuring (follow the directions, they are really easy but in-depth discussion is against forum policy) you should use Save to disk to save your calibre library. Then delete them from the library -- or the safe way is to Create new library -- and use Add books ==> add books from directory including subdirectories, assume each file is the same book in a different format.

You will retain all metadata, but the post-import hook will be run to activate the plugin on all books.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Gregg Bell

Hey Dennis. I would say 90% of my books are purchased from Amazon. The rest might be from places like MR or that Gutenberg project or places like that. I haven't run into an Amazon book that's had DRM yet.

How would you know?

If you bought the books from Amazon, and read them on a Kindle or with a Kindle app that has been registered with Amazon, they are simply opened and displayed. The fact that they are encumbered with DRM should not be obvious.

You would need to try reading some with something like FBReader (which does not support DRM)

Well, at least at this stage I know I've got the ebooks on Calibre and a usb drive. (If Amazon should close down. ) Next up will be trying to set up that plug-in at Alf's. Do you happen to know if that will work retroactively on the books I already have on Calibre? And then when I transfer the books to a usb drive (from Calibre) they should be DRM-free (if they've been stripped of the DRM via Alf's thing, that is), right?

Setting it up is trivial. You just need to drop the plugins into the Calibre plugin directory.

I'm fairly sure there's an option in Calibre to strip DRM after the fact if the plugins are installed. Since I don't get books with DRM, I haven't had cause to try.

And let's be clear about how Calibre works.

I keep my eBooks in a Calibre maintained library on the USB drive. I wanted the storage to not be tied to a specific machine. The eBook library is on a 32GB USB thumbdrive. I actually have two installations of Calibre itself: I have the 64 bit version installed on my desktop under Win7 Pro, and the Portable version installed on the thumbdrive, so I can run Calibre from there if I'm plugging the drive into a different device like my netbook.

The actual books are files in a Calibre maintained directory structure on the thumbdrive. The metadata is stored in a Calibre created and maintained SQLite database, and individual entries point to the files on the thumbdrive.

My primary reader device is an Android tablet. I put books on the tablet with Calibre. I plug the tablet into my computer via a MicroUSB cable. The tablet detects it's been plugged into a host and offers to turn on USB storage. Doing so unmounts the microSD card in the tablet, and the Win7 host sees the table as two removeable drives, with the Calibre library on the second. Connect to Folder in Calibre establishes connection with the device. Send to Device copies the selected volumes from the Calibre Library to the MicroSD card on the tablet.

When I turn off USB Storage on the tablet, the external card is mounted again, and the books are available for reading.
______
Dennis

[Gregg Bell]

All right, eschwartz and Dennis. Thanks for all the great info. Ironically enough the first ebook I tried (remember, I thought they were all DRM-free) to read was DRM. So that got me cutting at trying to set up the Alf (great name) automatic DRM removal thing on Calibre.

I'd lost all my books in Calibre overnight (I'd deleted some meta data files that wiped out my whole library.) so I decided to start fresh. (I only had 10 or 12 books in the library and still had the files so it was no big deal.)

I made a good start following Alf's instructions but bogged down at the point of customizing the plug-in for Linux. (see screenshot 94). Seems (I found this Googling around) I need to input info (see #95) I don't have, as I don't have an ereader yet. (And therefore no serial # for Kindle or credit card info for B&N.)

Would I be right in this being the reason I'm stuck?

And what about #96? Am I going to be setting up all of those? And it was a little confusing too. Most of the books I'm importing into Calibre are from Kindle for PC. Would that be the first category "eInk Kindle ebooks" or the last one "Kindle for Mac/PC ebooks"?

Thanks.

[eschwartz]

Official forum policy is we cannot give detailed help with the plugins. The rules were recently changed to allow linking to offsite resources, fortunately.

This might be useful.
Also there is a readme in the tools download --- it probably has more details.
https://apprenticealf.wordpress.com/...#comment-49437

If you still cannot figure it out, ask for help on https://apprenticealf.wordpress.com/...ls-for-ebooks/ and people there will help you.

[Gregg Bell]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

Official forum policy is we cannot give detailed help with the plugins. The rules were recently changed to allow linking to offsite resources, fortunately.

This might be useful.
Also there is a readme in the tools download --- it probably has more details.
https://apprenticealf.wordpress.com/...#comment-49437

If you still cannot figure it out, ask for help on https://apprenticealf.wordpress.com/...ls-for-ebooks/ and people there will help you.

Thanks Boss. Yeah, you mentioned that policy before so I'll abide. Thanks for the links. I went there. I'll figure it out. (Probably in a couple of years.)

[Gregg Bell]

Hey Linux geniuses. I was reading a book in ADE and it was working great. Made a lot of highlights and notes. Then when I closed out the book and re-opened it all the highlights and notes were gone. I Googled around and people were like, 'No worries. The highlights and annotations are in the ADE folder still.' Well, okay, but how do I get those annotations (which I'm assuming are my highlights and notes) back onto my book? And btw I also had three copies of the book when I only started out with one.) And if this matters, this all actually started with opening the book via an URLlink.acsm file. (whatever that is) Thanks.

[PeterT]

Probably what happened is that you downloaded the book multiple times. The URLlink.acsm file is the "key" that is used by the Adobe infrastructure to allow you to download the book from the web. It contains the authorizations that show that yes, YOU are authorized to download that content from the seller.

During the download process, the book is then "signed" with YOUR Adobe ID and stored on your computer.

Rather than re-opening the ACSM file you should just be selecting the ePub on your computer and opening that (or launching ADE and selecting the book from within it's view).

Quite likely, one of the three copies in your library will have the annotations in it.

[Gregg Bell]

Originally Posted by PeterT

Probably what happened is that you downloaded the book multiple times. The URLlink.acsm file is the "key" that is used by the Adobe infrastructure to allow you to download the book from the web. It contains the authorizations that show that yes, YOU are authorized to download that content from the seller.

During the download process, the book is then "signed" with YOUR Adobe ID and stored on your computer.

Rather than re-opening the ACSM file you should just be selecting the ePub on your computer and opening that (or launching ADE and selecting the book from within it's view).

Quite likely, one of the three copies in your library will have the annotations in it.

Thanks Peter. That's what I was thinking too but they're not there. And other people say, 'Hey, delete your ebook? No worries. The highlights are stil in the annotations.' But they don't tell you how to get them.

[Gregg Bell]

I bought a Sony PRS300RCWB-30W ereader. It's gorgeous. It worked great until I sideloaded a pdf from Calibre. (Actually my usb drive had been acting a little funky when it was mounted at the same time as the ereader--and when I removed the ereader the usb drive worked great in Calibre.) Calibre started flashing and I got this error:

The SONY XML cache "'/media/gregory/495C-0DBA/database/cache/media.xml'" does not exist. Try disconnecting and reconnecting your reader.

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "site-packages/calibre/gui2/device.py", line 87, in run
File "site-packages/calibre/gui2/device.py", line 502, in _books
File "site-packages/calibre/devices/prs505/driver.py", line 201, in books
File "site-packages/calibre/devices/usbms/driver.py", line 249, in books
File "site-packages/calibre/devices/prs505/driver.py", line 209, in sync_booklists
File "site-packages/calibre/devices/prs505/driver.py", line 197, in initialize_XML_cache
File "site-packages/calibre/devices/prs505/sony_cache.py", line 102, in __init__
DeviceError: The SONY XML cache "'/media/gregory/495C-0DBA/database/cache/media.xml'" does not exist. Try disconnecting and reconnecting your reader.

After that the ereader is stuck in "loading" mode with the arrows in the middle endlessly revolving. I tried re-setting it. I removed the pdf from the ereader's files. And I of course did the suggested disconnection and reconnecting. Nothing works. I am able to shut it down but when it comes back on it's loading again.

Any ideas? Thanks.

Going to post this in Calibre too. (It's a Linux and Calibre issue.)