Convert from Kindle's .azw to other formats?

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

It depends on the file manager, some of them use xdg-open, some do not. Personally, I dont use file managers. But, if you do use one, then setting all files to open with xdg-open will do the trick. I find maintaining ~/bin/xdg-open for file associations is much easier in the long term. It's more powerful and needs much fewer lines of text to maintain.

Very true. You have given me much to think about.

(I may very well end up sharing that, I assume you don't mind. Copyright, license, and upstream_url included, of course.)

[kovidgoyal]

I have no objections to sharing it. It is on my TODO list to someday make my general linux environment available somewhere for others to learn from. Modern linux tends to have a lot of design decisions that benefit less proficient users at the expense of people that can program. I'm not complaining, there are good reasons to make it accessible to non-programmers, but it does mean that it can do with a lot of customization to suit a programmer.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

I have no objections to sharing it. It is on my TODO list to someday make my general linux environment available somewhere for others to learn from. Modern linux tends to have a lot of design decisions that benefit less proficient users at the expense of people that can program. I'm not complaining, there are good reasons to make it accessible to non-programmers, but it does mean that it can do with a lot of customization to suit a programmer.

The same is true of every o/s. I understand why Windows hides file extensions by default, but it's still a "to do" task on every Windows system to disable that feature.

[kovidgoyal]

Originally Posted by HarryT

The same is true of every o/s. I understand why Windows hides file extensions by default, but it's still a "to do" task on every Windows system to disable that feature.

Sure, I have a long list of customizations I do on windows systems as well, when I find myself on one. The thing I like about linux, however, is that linux configuration is very maintainable. I can replicate my personal linux environment on a new linux machine in a few minutes by simply running a few commands. I find automation/replicability of that kind much harder on windows. Similarly, when I decide to change some aspect of my personal environment, perhaps using new software or a different configuration, the changes are very easy to replicate on all my linux machines, instantly.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

Sure, I have a long list of customizations I do on windows systems as well, when I find myself on one. The thing I like about linux, however, is that linux configuration is very maintainable. I can replicate my personal linux environment on a new linux machine in a few minutes by simply running a few commands. I find automation/replicability of that kind much harder on windows. Similarly, when I decide to change some aspect of my personal environment, perhaps using new software or a different configuration, the changes are very easy to replicate on all my linux machines, instantly.

Yes, it would be very convenient if these customisations could be made with a script file in Windows. They probably can be using a file to directly edit the registry, but it's inconvenient to do.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

Sure, I have a long list of customizations I do on windows systems as well, when I find myself on one. The thing I like about linux, however, is that linux configuration is very maintainable. I can replicate my personal linux environment on a new linux machine in a few minutes by simply running a few commands. I find automation/replicability of that kind much harder on windows. Similarly, when I decide to change some aspect of my personal environment, perhaps using new software or a different configuration, the changes are very easy to replicate on all my linux machines, instantly.

Amen!

I've been spending the summer learning more about linux; finally with my own machine to play with -- it's been a lot of fun and so easy to make sweeping changes.

I started off just by copying over from a flashdrive some of the dotfiles I cobbled together since a few years ago on the school computers, and a huge chunk of everything was already done. Saved me hours of effort.

Mostly -- it's just so easy to figure out where settings are stored on linux. No registry garbage.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

Mostly -- it's just so easy to figure out where settings are stored on linux. No registry garbage.

The whole point of the Windows registry is that it brings all configuration information together in one place. Much better than the older system of having a hundred ".ini" files spread out all over the system.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by HarryT

The whole point of the Windows registry is that it brings all configuration information together in one place. Much better than the older system of having a hundred ".ini" files spread out all over the system.

There are hundreds of megabytes of %APPDATA% that proves you wrong...

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

There are hundreds of megabytes of %APPDATA% that proves you wrong...

APPDATA isn't really the same thing. Its intended purpose (which is of course not the same thing as saying that it's the reality!) is to be a data storage area - data, not configuration files - that's private to the app. Eg it's where a mail program like Outlook will store its mailbox data. The actual configuration settings for Outlook, on the other hand, are in the registry.

Does Linux make no distinction between application data files and configuration settings? Forgive the question: my knowledge of Linux is sketchy.

[susan_cassidy]

It depends on which configuration files. Everything (pretty much) in Linux is fa file. Some configuration files are specific to the service or program they are for, but they are still just files. Normally, if a configuration has an interactive menu-type system to change configuration, you can also just edit the configuration file, although often you have to restart the application to get it to reread the file.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by susan_cassidy

It depends on which configuration files. Everything (pretty much) in Linux is fa file. Some configuration files are specific to the service or program they are for, but they are still just files. Normally, if a configuration has an interactive menu-type system to change configuration, you can also just edit the configuration file, although often you have to restart the application to get it to reread the file.

Configuration is a type of appdata. Linux stores all of it (the user-specific stuff) in $HOME/.config/, usually. and sometimes $HOME/.cache/ (equivalent to localappdata).

[dwig]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

Configuration is a type of appdata. ...

True, but as its name implies it is for applications and NOT for Windows itself. The vast bulk of the Windows OS level configuration is in the Registry.

Back in the day when I worked for the old Macromedia, I has a set of INF files to reconfigure new Windows installations. I very frequently had to setup a new OS installation and these made the core of personalizing the installation nearly painless.

I've not built one in recent years, but they can easily be created.