Libra 2 Alternatives to calibre?

[grogu]

Two questions:

1. My machine is old and doesn't support the latest version of calibre, which is required for the libra 2. I'm just wondering if there are alternatives to calibre for win 7? I was hoping to sideload books, backup annotations etc.

2. Some time in the next 6 months hopefully I'll be able to replace my computer and will probably go with a linux os (new to me). It looks like calibre works with linux, is it the best option for linux or is another app rec'd? Anything that might be useful to know?

3. Is it possible to sideload books from a tablet (apple or android?).

Ok so three questions...

[Sirtel]

Try to install the latest portable version on your Windows 7 computer. That has worked for several people here.

[grogu]

I guess it was worth trying, won't run on my machine, it does say it requires windows 8 tho.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by grogu

I guess it was worth trying, won't run on my machine, it does say it requires windows 8 tho.

You tried portable, not the regular version, yes?

At worst, you can still sideload to your Kobo, even without Calibre.

[ps67]

Originally Posted by grogu

Two questions:

...

2. Some time in the next 6 months hopefully I'll be able to replace my computer and will probably go with a linux os (new to me). It looks like calibre works with linux, is it the best option for linux or is another app rec'd? Anything that might be useful to know?

...

Calibre works well on Linux, remember the advice of Kovid Goyal: don't use the one shipped with Your distribution but download it from calibre's site.

[ZodWallop]

My real headache with (Fedora) Linux was Kindle for PC, which I could not get to run.

Calibre works just fine.

[Moonbase59]

2. There is no alternative to Calibre for Linux. Or any other OS.

And yes, it runs real great on Linux. (Except for the viewer, which for some reason takes ages to open an EPUB for the first time. Otherwise, the reader is fine.)

Please let me know if portable Calibre works out for you on Win7. I have a friend eager to try, and he also only has Win7.

[RobertJSawyer]

On my Dell Windows 7 32-bit desktop, Portable Calibre 5 works fine; on my Dell Windows 7 32-bit laptop, Portable Calibre 5 won't run at all.

[Quoth]

I've been dual booting Windows from 1998 to 2016. (Red Hat + NT 4.0, last was Linux Mint 18 and Win 7).
The last 32 bit Linux Mint is 19.3 and it works fine 2G RAM.
I run 64 bit Linux Mint 20.1 + Mate desktop and used a free MS Tool to image my actual XP laptop and Win 7 pc and have them as files for OpenBox VM on Linux. The tool will work on an EFI/UEFI bios PC as long as the windows is using legacy BIOS mode boot.
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sys...loads/disk2vhd
Untick Shadow Volume
Make sure no AV and no programs running and disable / pause all non-essential services

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by grogu

2. Some time in the next 6 months hopefully I'll be able to replace my computer and will probably go with a linux os (new to me). It looks like calibre works with linux, is it the best option for linux or is another app rec'd? Anything that might be useful to know?

If you've got some extra hard drive space you can install Linux now along side of your Windows 7 (dual boot) and try it out. Whether your computer supports 32-bit or 64-bit Linux, either will work with the newest Calibre. Your computer specifications would determine what your best choice would be. I like Linux Mint and Debian and either can be installed from a live USB drive (which is how I install Debian on "ancient", 32-bit laptops). That would be a short term solution at least.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by Quoth

The last 32 bit Linux Mint is 19.3 and it works fine 2G RAM.

I run 64 bit Linux Mint 20.1 + Mate desktop and used a free MS Tool to image my actual XP laptop and Win 7 pc and have them as files for OpenBox VM on Linux. The tool will work on an EFI/UEFI bios PC as long as the windows is using legacy BIOS mode boot.

If you want a more modern version of 32-bit Linux (Linux Mint 19.3 will reach end of life in April next year) you might want to try one of the Debian 11, non-free, live 32-bit installs (including one for Mate). Installs and looks just like Linux Mint but a little lighter because it doesn't have MintUpdate or Synaptics (by default). So instead you just use sudo apt update and sudo apt upgrade, etc. The Debian install will have newer libraries (which is its advantage).

https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/u...86/iso-hybrid/

debian-live-11.2.0-i386-mate+nonfree.iso - is the one I used (except the last time I downloaded it was for version 10).

But there's a decent chance that the OP's computer will support 64-bit Linux even if he's running 32-bit Windows 7.

EDIT: Should mention "non-free" isn't referring to the cost of the Debian download, it means that ISO includes proprietary firmware which is "non-free" in that you can't copy it or reuse it. Debian is big on trying not to use anything that's not freely copy-able. I, personally, would rather have a good proprietary driver that worked well than than a hacked one that may or may not work well. For a long time Debian wouldn't use Firefox (for example) for similar reasons. They recompiled it and called it (I think) IceWeasel. For some reason they changed their mind on this a few years back.

[davidfor]

I should have done this when @RobertJSawyer asked, but, attached is a driver for calibre 3.48 that adds the basic support for the Nia, Elipsa, Libra 2 and Sage. All it does is to add recognition of these devices and the latest firmware version. It does not implement any of the changes that have been made to the driver since calibre 3.48 was released.

The testing of this is extremely basic. I do not have access to one of the newer devices (my wife traded the Sage for her Forma). I have loaded it in the portable version of calibre 3.48, and it works with the Libra H2O. Beyond that, it, I can't say.

It should work with the Kobo Utilities plugin. But, again, I have done very little testing.

It does not support the KoboTouchExtended driver. I did a very quick test for this, but, it didn't work. I think I know why, but I do not see any way around that reason.

It should also work with calibre 4.23. But, I can't remember why people don't upgrade from that to calibre 5.

Installation and Use
To use the driver:

1. Download the zip file.
2. Follow the instructions under "How do I install a plugin manually?" in Introduction to plugins.
3. Disable the KoboTouch and KoboToucExtended driver. This is done on the Plugin page of the preference and can be done when installing the driver.
4. Configure the plugin. You will probably want to copy the configuration from the driver that you are using. Again, this can be done from the Plugin page of the preferences.

Support
For support, it will be very basic. This is intended just to let people stuck on these older versions of calibre to be able to use the newer Kobo devices. That means I will not be supporting any versions of calibre other than 3.48 and possibly 4.23. And I will not be supporting these versions if the OS version being used supports the latest version of calibre. If you can update calibre do so. I also do not intend to add features added in later versions of the KoboTouch driver to this. Most of those changes are interwoven with the rest of the code and would mean duplicating the driver rather than a simple extension like this.

If there are problems using this driver, please run calibre in debug mode and post the complete debug log, or upload it somewhere and PM me a link.

Once the driver has been confirmed to be working, I will start a thread to hold it for the future.

Edit:
Update plugin to version 1.0.1 to fix the issue that @grogu found.
Update plugin to version 1.0.2 to fix another issue related to covers.

[PeterT]

I presume people just download the zip and do a manual add of the plugin.

Sent from my Pixel 4a using Tapatalk

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by PeterT

I presume people just download the zip and do a manual add of the plugin.

Yes. And I've added some instructions. And honestly, my post is a big part of the reason I didn't want to do this in the first place.

[grogu]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

You tried portable, not the regular version, yes?

At worst, you can still sideload to your Kobo, even without Calibre.

Originally Posted by Sirtel

You tried portable, not the regular version, yes?

At worst, you can still sideload to your Kobo, even without Calibre.

Yes, even the download page for the portable recs windows 8. I tried using a slightly earlier version and it didn't run. I didn't experiment much more than that.

I did try creating a "books" directory and dragging a book into it, which worked. After installing David's plugin I saw that books transferred by calibre are stored in the main directory author lastname,firstname. I'm not sure where they're supposed to be stored, but I guess it doesn't really matter where you put them, the kobo finds them.

I did get David's plugin working so was able to transfer books to the device (but not delete).