Calibre Software for Chromebook OS

[avetik]

That's a good guide, however calibre within Crostini does not work nicely with external storage. Latest versions of CrOS (v 73 Dev) finally allow to bridge the gap between space used by Linux and Android. I had no problem installing software like SciTE editor, and it is able to access shares under /mnt/chromeos ... However Calibre has some permission issues with metadata.db. I can't figure out how to fix it. I tried chown and chmod commands on metadata.db, but permissions got errors like "operation is not permitted". This is probably because I am trying to use an existing Calibre library I used to create and maintain using Crouton -- an older and more stable Linux option for Chromebooks. I'll keep trying, but my hopes are not too high at this point.

[avetik]

Just playing with Crostini install of binary opens the file okay, and allows me to add books, albeit still no luck on trying to create the library on a removable media. It dumps the following error message, so I am wondering whether it's related to the problem I am experiencing. Any ideas?

DBusExport: Failed to connect to DBUS session bus, with error: org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.Spawn.ExecFailed: /usr/bin/dbus-launch terminated abnormally with the following error: dbus-launch: /opt/calibre/lib/libdbus-1.so.3: version `LIBDBUS_PRIVATE_1.10.26' not found (required by dbus-launch)

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "site-packages/calibre/gui2/notify.py", line 171, in get_notifier
  File "site-packages/calibre/gui2/notify.py", line 88, in get_dbus_notifier
  File "site-packages/dbus/_dbus.py", line 211, in __new__
  File "site-packages/dbus/_dbus.py", line 100, in __new__
  File "site-packages/dbus/bus.py", line 122, in __new__
DBusException: org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.Spawn.ExecFailed: /usr/bin/dbus-launch terminated abnormally with the following error: dbus-launch: /opt/calibre/lib/libdbus-1.so.3: version `LIBDBUS_PRIVATE_1.10.26' not found (required by dbus-launch)

[avetik]

I have noticed that file metadta.db on a library that calibre can access has permissions set to 0644, however on a library file that has permissions set to 0755 it shows library as corrupted. I am not sure if this provides any further insight into the problem.

[kovidgoyal]

That error is from notifications i the GUI and should go away if you turn off notifications in Preferences->Behavior

[avetik]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

That error is from notifications i the GUI and should go away if you turn off notifications in Preferences->Behavior

Thanks for the hint, Kovid. In general I'm looking into running calibre either on Chromebook or on Raspberry Pi -- both platforms IMHO have portability and access advantages. Both, unfortunately, have problems running calibre. I remember you mentioned that your Linux user base is not that significant (not sure if it's still the case). But is there any chance you will be experimenting with running calibre on these platforms? Just curios. Meanwhile, thanks for what you have accomplished thus far! Regards.

[kovidgoyal]

As far as I know, calibre works fine on RPi. Plenty of reports of people using it there on these firums.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by avetik

I remember you mentioned that your Linux user base is not that significant (not sure if it's still the case).

FYI ==>> https://calibre-ebook.com/dynamic/calibre-usage

The country and OS stats haven't changed much over the years I've been using calibre. I think 'other' might have gone from 1.7 to 2.2, Spain has always been top of the pops country-wise.

BR

[Popup]

Running Calibre on the latest stable ChromeOS on my Pixelbook works great.
Thanks Kovid!

(My only current gripe is that I used to keep my library in DropBox, but they no longer support anything but ext4 under linux. But that's another issue.)

[restinginlove]

I have a couple old (4-5 years old) chromebooks turned linux machines running GalliumOS and they are both on their last legs, and it looks like the GalliumOS project is all but abandoned so I was curious if it was possible to run calibre on chromeOS out of the box now. I store my books on an external hard drive so I don't need dropbox functionality or anything like that. Looks like it may be less of a PITA to use Crouton still, from what people have been reporting?

[Popup]

With the latest ChromeOS (74, as of this writing), it's easy to share folders with the linux container (from 'Files', right-click the folder and select 'share with linux'). If I plug in my kindle, it shows up in the linux container as /mnt/chromeos/removable/Kindle.

I had a quick try with Calibre, and it looks like it's possible to use the 'Folder Device Interface' plugin to access it. It's not quite as automagic as just plugging in an USB device, but it works reasonably well.

[solarcat]

Originally Posted by Popup

With the latest ChromeOS (74, as of this writing), it's easy to share folders with the linux container (from 'Files', right-click the folder and select 'share with linux'). If I plug in my kindle, it shows up in the linux container as /mnt/chromeos/removable/Kindle.

I had a quick try with Calibre, and it looks like it's possible to use the 'Folder Device Interface' plugin to access it. It's not quite as automagic as just plugging in an USB device, but it works reasonably well.

But even in Chrome OS 74, you can't create a Calibre library on removable storage. You still get the "corrupted" messages mentioned above. If anyone solves this, I sure would like to know.

My Chromebook has only 32 GB of internal storage. I've added a 512 GB microSD card. I'd like to keep a Calibre library of approximately 15 GB on the device, but that's much too big to fit in the remaining internal storage. That's why I'm so interested in this issue.

Your post inspired me to try Calibre's "Connect to Folder" interface on a microSD card folder containing a small copied portion of my Calibre library. It sort of works. The covers don't display. It does open epubs, but it doesn't open PDFs. (For PDFs it calls the Chrome browser but does't pass a usable file path). And it doesn't seem to want to stay connected. It drops the folder-as-device after a while.

Still, that's better than nothing. Thanks for the idea.

I'd love to see the problem solved completely, though, so a real library could be stored on removable storage.

[avetik]

I ended up calling Calobre from a script located on SD Card. It's not elegant, but at least opens the software without issues

myusername@penguin:/mnt/chromeos/removable/SdCard$ sh ./bin/run_cal.sh

And the script is below. Just trying to maintain a metadata.db on a location where its has no problem with permissions, and each time copy existing file back to the library location in case I need to powerwash the device and start over.

DBPATH=./Calibre
MDBLOC=/home/myusername/metadata_sd.db
if [ ! -f $MDBLOC ]; then
    cp -T --force $DBPATH/metadata.db $MDBLOC
fi

if [ -f $MDBLOC ]; then
    cp -T --force $MDBLOC $DBPATH/metadata.db
fi

export CALIBRE_OVERRIDE_DATABASE_PATH=$MDBLOC

QT_DEVICE_PIXEL_RATIO=1 nohup calibre --with-library $MDBLOC

[solarcat]

Originally Posted by avetik

I ended up calling Calibre from a script located on SD Card. It's not elegant, but at least opens the software without issues

This sounds promising, avetik, but I'm sorry to say I don't fully understand what you've done. Could you say more about how you set it up before running the script?

Thanks very much!

[avetik]

What I was trying to do is to always copy metadata.db from SD card over to my user directory, where permissions are adequate. I called that usable copy of the file metadata_sd.db to remind me that it came from SD card. The original file name will be still metadata.db. So the file from my local directory will always be copied to the library, because it is more current. If there was no file in my directory to begin with it will be copied. I'm sure there's a more professional way of doing that, but it's just me. The key point is to ensure the actual db file that will be used is always located outside of SD card which is not fully read/writeable under CrOS. Once that's taken care of CALIBRE_OVERRIDE_DATABASE_PATH env variable (or --with-library option) points to the real location of that database. I can't recall why I chose to call calibre with QT_DEVICE_PIXEL_RATIO=1 nohup -- probably to overcome some other hiccup. Hope it helps.

[WillAcerR13]

So I am fairly new to native Chromebooks, I have usually purchased old out of support ones and run Ubuntu on them, I now have a nice shiny new Acer R13 which if you are looking for a light very cool running Chromebook at a reasonable price this is a good one. Mine cost $188 USD. ChromeOS now has the beta Linux feature. Since I am not that knowledgeable has anyone compiled Calibre for ARM processors yet? Any guidance would be appreciated. If it is worthwhile and I can get some guidance I am willing to do this and post it, but again I am a novice on builds and on posting it to this site or Github. Suggestions?? Thanks, Will