Limited functionality on Raspberry Pi

jaffa · 03-21-2015, 11:22 AM

I like to use Calibre to download news and send it to my Kindle. I currently have it set-up on my Windows machine to download the news every day at 9pm as I know my computer will be on at that time. Ideally, I'd like to download news first thing in the morning so I can keep up-to-date.

I installed Calibre on a Raspberry Pi (running Raspbian OS), planning to automate the Pi to come on every morning, download news, email it to my Kindle, and then turn off.

I can get Calbre as far as downloading all of my news sources - after that, it doesn't automatically convert and email the ebooks to my Kindle, even though I have the same settings on the Pi as on my Windows machine. I can manually trigger a test email from Calibre to my Kindle.

Is this functionality only available in the Windows version of the software, or does the conversion process take more processing power than the Raspberry Pi has?

itimpi · 03-21-2015, 11:44 AM

As far as I know their is no deliberate reduction in functionality on the Raspberry Pi. However Calibre tends to assume you have plenty of RAM so it may well be that is stopping things working on the Pi. The RAM can vary depending on the pi model from 256Mb to 1GB (although some is lost to the GPU for handling the screen) so the model you have may be relevant.

jaffa · 03-21-2015, 12:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by itimpi

As far as I know their is no deliberate reduction in functionality on the Raspberry Pi. However Calibre tends to assume you have plenty of RAM so it may well be that is stopping things working on the Pi. The RAM can vary depending on the pi model from 256Mb to 1GB (although some is lost to the GPU for handling the screen) so the model you have may be relevant.

I got the Pi 2 model B, so I've got 1GB of RAM. Would it be worth disconnecting the monitor to free up the RAM, or is some RAM dedicated to GPU regardless of whether a monitor is connected or not?

PeterT · 03-21-2015, 12:59 PM

You should be able to adjust the memory dedicated to the GPU by editing the config.txt file. See http://www.raspberrypi.org/documenta.../config-txt.md

gbm · 03-21-2015, 05:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jaffa

I like to use Calibre to download news and send it to my Kindle. I currently have it set-up on my Windows machine to download the news every day at 9pm as I know my computer will be on at that time. Ideally, I'd like to download news first thing in the morning so I can keep up-to-date.

I installed Calibre on a Raspberry Pi (running Raspbian OS), planning to automate the Pi to come on every morning, download news, email it to my Kindle, and then turn off.

I can get Calbre as far as downloading all of my news sources - after that, it doesn't automatically convert and email the ebooks to my Kindle, even though I have the same settings on the Pi as on my Windows machine. I can manually trigger a test email from Calibre to my Kindle.

Is this functionality only available in the Windows version of the software, or does the conversion process take more processing power than the Raspberry Pi has?

1. You need to do each download/convert one at a time. Pick out the largest one and time how long it takes, then use that plus 30% as the time to allow for your jobs.
2. Configure a swap-file, enable it, and set swappiness to 10 or more. You can play around with this to find the best setting. See this page to set up a swap file with 1gb of RAM setup a swap of 1gb and swappiness to 20.

My desktop running Mint did the same when I had a memory failure and had only 1 gb of ram with the swap turned off.

Luck:
bernie

eschwartz · 03-22-2015, 05:24 PM

Nothing to do with your problem, but IIRC raspbian has a pretty out-of-date version of calibre, somewhere in the 0.8.x series I think?
There have been all sorts of fixes, to tons of stuff, in that time.

Might be worth switching to ArchLinuxArm, since they are very good at keeping up to date.

03-21-2015, 11:22 AM	#1
jaffa Junior Member Posts: 2 Karma: 10 Join Date: Mar 2015 Device: Kindle	Limited functionality on Raspberry Pi I like to use Calibre to download news and send it to my Kindle. I currently have it set-up on my Windows machine to download the news every day at 9pm as I know my computer will be on at that time. Ideally, I'd like to download news first thing in the morning so I can keep up-to-date. I installed Calibre on a Raspberry Pi (running Raspbian OS), planning to automate the Pi to come on every morning, download news, email it to my Kindle, and then turn off. I can get Calbre as far as downloading all of my news sources - after that, it doesn't automatically convert and email the ebooks to my Kindle, even though I have the same settings on the Pi as on my Windows machine. I can manually trigger a test email from Calibre to my Kindle. Is this functionality only available in the Windows version of the software, or does the conversion process take more processing power than the Raspberry Pi has?

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03-21-2015, 11:44 AM	#2
itimpi Wizard Posts: 4,553 Karma: 950151 Join Date: Nov 2008 Device: Sony PRS-950, iphone/ipad (Marvin/iBooks/QuickReader)	As far as I know their is no deliberate reduction in functionality on the Raspberry Pi. However Calibre tends to assume you have plenty of RAM so it may well be that is stopping things working on the Pi. The RAM can vary depending on the pi model from 256Mb to 1GB (although some is lost to the GPU for handling the screen) so the model you have may be relevant.

03-21-2015, 12:59 PM	#4
PeterT Grand Sorcerer Posts: 12,624 Karma: 74358024 Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: Toronto Device: Libra H2O, Libra Colour	You should be able to adjust the memory dedicated to the GPU by editing the config.txt file. See http://www.raspberrypi.org/documenta.../config-txt.md

03-22-2015, 05:24 PM	#6
eschwartz Ex-Helpdesk Junkie Posts: 19,421 Karma: 85397180 Join Date: Nov 2012 Location: The Beaten Path, USA, Roundworld, This Side of Infinity Device: Kindle Touch fw5.3.7 (Wifi only)	Nothing to do with your problem, but IIRC raspbian has a pretty out-of-date version of calibre, somewhere in the 0.8.x series I think? There have been all sorts of fixes, to tons of stuff, in that time. Might be worth switching to ArchLinuxArm, since they are very good at keeping up to date.

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