Starling as an eReader?

[EmilyRose]

Hi there, I've been considering buying a dedicated ereader (mostly looking at the Kindle & Nook), and was wondering how the Starling fared as an ereader? Does anyone use it as one often/daily?

[Eldera]

Hello, EmilyRose,
I can't answer for the Starling, but I use my Pangolin (panp4n)as an eReader. (Daily) I am running Jaunty 32 bit and have installed Wine and the Mobipocket Reader into Wine. I chose Mobipocket because I have another laptop running Windows and since Mobipocket lets you have one book on up to three devices, I can buy a book, install it on both machines, and read from whichever computer I have booted up. I am 74 and the larger screens of the laptops are better for me than something the size of the Kindle. I hope you find what is right for you. Happy reading.

Edit: I had Jaunty 64 bit on earlier and the Wine/Mobipocket combo worked on that, too. I switched to 32 bit because I am trying to learn to use VirtualBox and my hardware does not support 64 bit guests. I figured if i was limited to 32 bit guests I might as well have a 32 bit host.

Edit: December 28, 2009 I have just installed Karmic on a second partition. The Mobipocket Reader does not work with the version of Wine currently in synaptic in Karmic. (Wine1.0.1 Oubuntu8 )

[thomasaaron]

I don't know a lot about e-reader software, but it sounds like Eldera has found some good options.

There is also an e-book reader or two in the repositories that handle a number of formats.

[Eldera]

There is also an e-book reader or two in the repositories that handle a number of formats.

I did not know that. I am going to look for them because I enjoy exploring alternatives.

Thanks for starting this thread, EmilyRose, it looks like we are both going to learn something. Do you actually have a Starling now or were you just trying to get info to help make up your mind to get one? Have you done any eReading on your Gazelle?
If I am being too much of a snoopy old lady, you don't have to answer the personal stuff.

Edit: I found listed in synaptic: alexandria, calibre, fbreader, gutenbrowser, and txtreader. gutenbrowser had this link http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page I don't have time to study these any more right now, but I will be back to them later.

[gamerchick02]

I use the starling to read ebooks all of the time.

I use Calibre and I love it as a way to organize my ebooks. I usually get them for free off of places like project gutenburg and Wikibooks.

The screen is about the right size for reading a book, and it does so many other things.

Amy

[EmilyRose]

I don't have a starling yet, but am considering one... I've read a handful of books on my gazelle and found it do be just OK, but the fact that you can now get *SO* many older books for FREE online makes getting a decent e-book reader seem really tempting!!

EDIT: I'm downloading calibre now... I previously read books just in PDF format in PDF readers - not the most elegant solution, but it worked!

[KoRnholio]

As other people have stated, you can definitely read ebooks on the Starling - there is plenty of software available.

A dedicated ebook reader will always have other advantages, like the screen. If your eyes hurt after reading on your Gazelle for a while, the same would probably be true of the Starling. On the other hand, it is possible to reduce the display brightness on your screen when you read a book.

[Teasdale]

The last time I tried to use a netbook as an ereader, (I forget whether it was my EEE PC or Starling), there was no bookmark function on the reader that came pre-installed.

Can anyone recommend a plain text ereader for the Starling that lets you hold places in several books so that you can open a text and it loads to the place you stopped, and can do that for any number of books I might be reading at any given time?

[drewbenn]

Can anyone recommend a plain text ereader for the Starling that lets you hold places in several books so that you can open a text and it loads to the place you stopped, and can do that for any number of books I might be reading at any given time?

Any text editor? It won't go there automatically, but doing a search is easy enough. When you're ready to bookmark your position, just write down "your" string and save the file. Use something that won't appear in the book, like "STARTHERE" or "%^%^" or anything you want that is unique. When you load the file again, search for the string and delete it. It's a little like turning down the corner of the page (something I would *never* do with a real book!) -- it's not really _destructive_, but you are physically changing the book.

Take a few minutes to pick an editor that gives you sufficient control over font, font size, wrapping, and colors. About 15 years ago, I found that DOS' 'edit' in a full-screen window on my 15" monitor with white text on a blue background was a really great way to read a lot of great books from Project Gutenberg :). I hope you find something that works as well.

[jdb]

The last time I tried to use a netbook as an ereader, (I forget whether it was my EEE PC or Starling), there was no bookmark function on the reader that came pre-installed.

Can anyone recommend a plain text ereader for the Starling that lets you hold places in several books so that you can open a text and it loads to the place you stopped, and can do that for any number of books I might be reading at any given time?

For pdf files, evince always opens a document at the same place you last closed it.

jdb

[cbtengr]

I've been using a Palm to read ebooks for years. This free software runs on my Ubuntu (9.04) computer with Wine:

https://secure.ereader.com/ereader/software/product/15009_pro_win.htm

[Teasdale]

>>Any text editor? It won't go there automatically, but doing a search is easy enough. When you're ready to bookmark your position, just write down "your" string and save the file. Use something that won't appear in the book, like "STARTHERE" or "%^%^" or anything you want that is unique. When you load the file again, search for the string and delete it.

I suppose I could do that, I already use a string, but I've been using QED on my Palm, and I think it's spoiled me. It's a small, simple text editor. It opens any text document to the last place I stopped automatically. If I open and close seven different files and then turn off the Palm device, it will open those documents to the places I was in when I closed them.

That's what I'd need on my Starling to make it useful as an eReader. And it seems like such a simple program shouldn't need Wine to run.

[nealaustin]

I'm not sure about the starling but I got the free kindle for PC to run flawlessly after configuring my wine to windows 98. I just wonder if I can put my Kindle-Books on two pc's at once? That Starling really looks sharp.

[jpv]

For an editor that remembers where you left off, vim (vi) or gvim can be configured to do that. <ducks> But it's probably better to check into the packages mentioned above, since they are more likely to Just Work for what you're trying to do.

Having said that, 'less' is an *awesome* plain text reader. 'less +<line#>G' or 'less -ip <pattern>' might be viable options. If you squint a bit... less has a zillion options, read the man page.


Ironically I was just thinking about this very issue today, before I found this thread. I found some, but not all, of the packages above. But the Wikipedia article for the MobiPocket format also mentions:

okular-kde4 - document viewer for KDE 4


# This is how I look for stuff like this:
$ apt-cache search <keyword> | less -ip <keyword>


For any SciFi fans, baen.com has lots of good stuff in their free library, in many formats. I think someone else already mentioned archive.org.