E-book readers for Ubuntu?

[Arto]

Just wondering what y'all are using for reading ebooks?

Obviously Microsoft Reader files (.lit) are out of the question (right?), PDFs can be read with Evince (though it doesn't have the most friendly hotkeys for reading) or Adobe Acrobat, but is there any general-purpose ebook application included in the repositories that would handle text & HTML files such as can be obtained from, for example, Project Gutenberg?

[Burgundavia]

If you email a lit file to the evince developers, they may be able to make evince work with it.

Corey

[jonrkc]

Originally Posted by Arto Just wondering what y'all are using for reading ebooks? Obviously Microsoft Reader files (.lit) are out of the question (right?), PDFs can be read with Evince (though it doesn't have the most friendly hotkeys for reading) or Adobe Acrobat, but is there any general-purpose ebook application included in the repositories that would handle text & HTML files such as can be obtained from, for example, Project Gutenberg?

I generally read e-books (mostly from Project Gutenberg) on my Palm Tungsten E, and before that on my IIIxe and IIIx. When I do read something of that nature on my desktop computer, I just use OpenOffice.org and open the .txt file that way. It's legible and you can pick the font that works best for you, etc. I really don't see the need for specialized e-book software for desktop use, for myself, but of course if it resulted in nicer formatting that would be a good reason.

[eeried]

Well, an app may not be necessary but I really miss Tom's e-text Reader that worked under Windows : http://pws.prserv.net/Fellner/Software/eTR.htm
this reader gives you the look and feel of a book, you can add a TOC, and of course change the color of the background and the font and colour of the text, and edit the text. It reads all kinds of files, and even zip files -- so you don't have ti unzip your zipped e-book before reading it. Great app!

I can install Wine I suppose or beg "Tom" to make a Linux version...

[erikpiper]

That is cool! Cmon some developer, please?

[mtalexan]

I didn't take the time to really test it out thoroughly, but it looks like you can use "Tom's" program with wine. To do so just run the command:
./wine eTextReader.exe "nameofbook.file"
where "nameofbook.file" is the full file name of the book. It seems to automatically open the file. If you have problems, make sure you're running the command in the same directory as the program, make sure it's a supported format, amd make sure the book is in the same directory as the program. The program doesn't handle the file format I was looking for, so you'll have to do any further testing on your own.

[eeried]

Many thanks for your wine suggestion, mtalexan. I thought of that and tried it once under Libranet, and it worked (I still had windows98 as dual-boot).

Now I only have Linux and I didn't like the idea of installing wine -- too much of a hassle. But you're right I should try.

However I wrote to Tom the author who replied he was thinking of making a better version for Linux, not simply a port, so let's keep our fingers crossed.

[Кнеле]

Greetings,

Possible solution for files with .lit extension can be OpenBerg Lector extension for Firefox web browser. Here is a short quide:HOWTO: Open files with .lit extension in Firefox
Best regards,
Knele

[sanderella]

This is a good thread.

I have had a Rocket ebook since they first came out in 1998. It still runs well, I use it every day. But I have to be careful how much I put on it, since it only has 8mb memory.

For a whole bookshelf full of books I bought an eBookwise with a 64 mb memory card.I have 16 books on it, and it's not half full.

My grumble is that I can't download files through Ubuntu and put them on my ebook readers, they're all locked into MS. The files I can download on Windows are rb, text, html, rtf and msword.

I would just LOVE someone to make libraries for these devices. Any helpful comments from anyone?

[mreierson]

I just got an eBookWise device as well and it's great. I made a program to download books in Linux. It still requires a content server as it just provides the network connection. You can convert books on the FictionWise website or run the GEBLibrarian under Wine. It's on sourceforge at http://www.sf.net/projects/eb1150.