Operating system to use best

[ChrisEhv]

Hi

I am new here
I live in Eindhoven in The Netherlands.

Planning to start working with Calibre

Does the application works better and easier on Microsoft laptops or Apple laptops ?

Thanks for your reply.

ChrisEhv

[pdurrant]

Calibre works equally well on Windows and Mac OS.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Calibre works equally well on Windows and Mac OS.

And under Linux.

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by rcentros

And under Linux.

The program itself works, and many plugins as well. Arguably on the same computer the linux version works faster than the equivalent windows version. At least on my own computer most everything works faster in GNU/Linux than on Windows10 with everything that is comparable and natively available on both systems. And yet the linux version of calibre has limitations when certain plugins depend on proprietary software, which is an additional hurdle that should be mentioned.

Proprietary software per se is not even the real problem, unless your philosophy does not make any exceptions allowing installation of non-free on principle. What works, works rather well, but is surely not equally easy to setup. Also depending on your distro your are limited in which version of calibre is readily available in the repository with all dependencies already solved and working.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

The program itself works, and many plugins as well. ...

Proprietary software per se is not even the real problem, unless your philosophy does not make any exceptions allowing installation of non-free on principle. What works, works rather well, but is surely not equally easy to setup. Also depending on your distro your are limited in which version of calibre is readily available in the repository with all dependencies already solved and working.

I guess I've lucked out as the Kindle and Kobo (Obok) DeDRM plugins work in Linux and that's all I use (this has just recently changed for Obok, I believe). As for my distro repositories, if I depended on them for Linux Mint Mate 17.1, I would be stuck at Calibre 1.25. Fortunately Kovid Goyal makes it extremely easy to install the newest version on any Linux distribution — just copy and paste and run a script (or a couple scripts if you need to add dependencies) in the Terminal. So, even though Linux Mint Mate 17.1 came out in June, 2014, I'm currently running the newest version of Calibre (3.30.0). Calibre is a fantastic application.

https://calibre-ebook.com/download_linux

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by rcentros

I guess I've lucked out as the Kindle and Kobo (Obok) DeDRM plugins work in Linux and that's all I use (this has just recently changed for Obok, I believe). As for my distro repositories, if I depended on them for Linux Mint Mate 17.1, I would be stuck at Calibre 1.25. Fortunately Kovid Goyal makes it extremely easy to install the newest version on any Linux distribution — just copy and paste and run a script (or a couple scripts if you need to add dependencies) in the Terminal. So, even though Linux Mint Mate 17.1 came out in June, 2014, I'm currently running the newest version of Calibre (3.30.0). Calibre is a fantastic application.

https://calibre-ebook.com/download_linux

Aye, thank you for that. Last time I installed calibre (2.75.1 - the version from Debian Stretch) I chose not to use the download page directly, because reading through the changelog got me a little overwhelmed. Turns out most of the changes of dependencies in the changelog concern building from source mainly, not to be able to use the binary version. It wasn't clear enough to me.

Have to say that installing with the script from download page went flawless and even faster than using the repository. Preliminary so far using calibre with the current 3.30 has even bigger speed advantages to the Windows version than 2.75.1 had. Very nice, all my installed plugins (including the DeDRM one) survived the uninstall of 2.75.1 and reinstall of 3.30 without any need to even set them up again.

KFX Output and DOC Input are the only two plugins now that don't even install in linux. For DeDRM I am in the same boat as you, it simply works without jumping through hoops - I always choose to download and transfer via USB from Amazon (only store that gets my business for DRMed books anymore).

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

Aye, thank you for that. Last time I installed calibre (2.75.1 - the version from Debian Stretch) I chose not to use the download page directly, because reading through the changelog got me a little overwhelmed. Turns out most of the changes of dependencies in the changelog concern building from source mainly, not to be able to use the binary version. It wasn't clear enough to me. ...

I think with modern Linux distributions the dependencies are usually met already and you should only have to run the top (installation) script. I think with Linux Mint 17.1 I had to run one (or two?) additional scripts the first time for the dependencies. Since then it's just been the top one. Like you, though, I balked when I saw all the scripts, but the repository version (1.25) in Linux Mint 17.1 of Calibre had way too many limitations so I eventually "waded in." I should have never waited, as you say, it turned out to be easy.

You'll find now that Calibre will give you notice about every week (or every other week) that there is a new update waiting. I (personally) don't update every time, usually just every two or three times.

The Export/Import works really well. I exported my Calibre books from Linux, copied to a thumb drive and then imported them to a Windows machine (just to see if it would work) and I had no issues. What surprised me is that even the DeDRM plugins moved over, already configured and worked "out of box" on the new install. (I'm guessing that wouldn't work going the other way if you were using plugins that don't work in Linux.)

[ChrisEhv]

Thanks all for your responses