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Amazon drops Linux support for generating Kindle ebooks

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Re: Amazon drops Linux support for generating Kindle ebooks

#81

Post by hart_russell »

bberenberg wrote: post #75
acabal wrote: post #52

Calibre was always much better at generating Kindle-compatible books than Kindlegen ever was. We use Calibre in our posix-based build chain at Standard Ebooks. The Kindle file format is just miserable, and Kindle is basically the IE6 of ereaders. Anyone who cares about ebooks should get a different device that supports epub natively. Kobo makes nice devices, supports epub, and uses Webkit as their renderer (when used…

I would be happy to buy a non Kindle device if someone can explain what the library loan story looks like there. I use a combo of Libby, OverDrive, cloudLibrary, and SimplyE (nuts that 1 need four apps for 1 library system). Afaik there is no good way for me to borrow books unless I stay on Kindle.

I use OverDrive on my Kobo Forma. I have had no problem checking out books and reading them using that method. I have not looked into the other services you listed here.

Re: Amazon drops Linux support for generating Kindle ebooks

#82

Post by mdoms »

peterdemin wrote: post #33
snazz wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, this decision makes business sense for Amazon. Updating a Linux client is a nice gesture but affects a very small parentage of desktop users.

That strikes me how enthusiasts can manage Linux software for free, but multibillion corporation cuts it for “business sense”.

There are lots of things I do for free that multibillion dollar corporations would consider a cost centre. Amazon also doesn't maintain my garden.

Re: Amazon drops Linux support for generating Kindle ebooks

#83

Post by monadic2 »

turtlebits wrote: post #7
monadic2 wrote: post #2

They still read epub, right? Their proprietary format didn't have many convincingly useful features anyway.

Nope, IIRC, the only open ebook format supported is mobi. Never used Kindlegen though, Calibre works great for me. (Although I have never authored an ebook).

Ack you're right... same conclusion though.

Re: Amazon drops Linux support for generating Kindle ebooks

#84

Post by monadic2 »

liability wrote: post #23
turtlebits wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope, IIRC, the only open ebook format supported is mobi. Never used Kindlegen though, Calibre works great for me. (Although I have never authored an ebook).

They also load PDFs and plain text files (IIRC) though those are not quite 'eBook formats.'

I've personally found the pdf on kindle experience to be absolutely frustrating but YMMV I'm sure.

Re: Amazon drops Linux support for generating Kindle ebooks

#85

Post by liability »

leephillips wrote: post #60
liability wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you format a PDF for the Kindle screen, offering different files for different size devices, the result will look better than the reflowable AZW format That's not going to work well unless you can anticipate what font settings the reader[user] will prefer (e.g. you're generating these PDFs for your own personal use, not for distribution.)

You and the other reply are correct about font sizes. I thought it was obvious that, if you are generating different files for different screen sizes, you can also generate large-type versions. This can all be automated. Why bother? Because the usual format for Kindle books looks bad, like webpages. And, as I said, forget about math, etc.

Having two font settings to choose from is a degraded user experience. You're also missing the margin and line spacing settings, as well as font style. Also TTS sucks with PDFs but works excellent with reflowable formats (this one is important to me personally.)

> the usual format for [any ebooks] looks [...] like webpages.

Because they basically are, and to most people who use these files, that's a feature. Attempts to subvert that are misguided.

> math

This is legitimately a pain point for ebooks, I agree on this point. However I think embedding formula as images with alt-text is a better solution than offering dozens of PDF variations.

Re: Amazon drops Linux support for generating Kindle ebooks

#86

Post by Turing_Machine »

chipotle_coyote wrote: post #44

I'm not sure how much of a big deal this is in practice. Amazon's KindleGen tool was never open source, and Kindle-specific book formats are proprietary. And, while this is admittedly anecdotal, I don't think I'm going out on a limb by suggesting that Linux users tend toward the, hmm, opinionated when it comes to certain things, licensing chief among them. Dollars to donuts that out of the "Kindle books" generated on…

Yeah, you can upload an epub to Amazon's Kindle publishing portal, and it will convert it and provide a download link for the converted version (if you want to double-check it before hitting "Publish" -- recommended).

Re: Amazon drops Linux support for generating Kindle ebooks

#87

Post by smegger001 »

jacurtis wrote: post #77
smegger001 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is the rest of the amazon ecosystems integration is great. If I buy a Kindle eBook I get a discount on the audio-book from Audible and they compliment each-other with good integration. for example the Audiobook picks up where I stopped reading, or the kindle will open where I last listened and I can ask Alexa to play my book when I have to stop reading and do housework. its not lock in exactly as I can li…

This is why I am on Kindle as well. I enjoy the "Whispersync" Audible/Kindle integration and multi-device support. For those that don't know, Whispersync is easily the Kindle's "killer feature". It syncs your location in the book across all devices (I use iPad, Kindle Paperwhite, and iPhone, Sonos, Alexa, etc). So if you read a chapter on your phone, and then go to your Kindle later that night, it will keep you in th…

pretty much where I am at. at this point pretty much the only thing to get me out of their ecosystem at this point would be either a government break up of amazon/a long series foot shooting measures by amazon, fallowed someone else making a low price color e-ink reader before amazon. But color e-readers like that wont be out a reasonable price for 10-20 years based on patents owned by e-Ink expiring around then. (eInk really doesn't seem to want anyone to use their technology for some reason.)

Re: Amazon drops Linux support for generating Kindle ebooks

#88

Post by leephillips »

liability wrote: post #85
leephillips wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You and the other reply are correct about font sizes. I thought it was obvious that, if you are generating different files for different screen sizes, you can also generate large-type versions. This can all be automated. Why bother? Because the usual format for Kindle books looks bad, like webpages. And, as I said, forget about math, etc.

Having two font settings to choose from is a degraded user experience. You're also missing the margin and line spacing settings, as well as font style. Also TTS sucks with PDFs but works excellent with reflowable formats (this one is important to me personally.) > the usual format for [any ebooks] looks [...] like webpages. Because they basically are, and to most people who use these files, that's a feature. Attempts…

What’s TTS?

Poor typography is a degraded user experience. If a Kindle is to be an electronic replacement for a paper book, it is nice if it also has decent typesetting, like a real book.

There are tradeoffs. If some things are more important to you, I would hesitate to accuse you of being “misguided”.

EDIT: It hit me: text to speech. You are right about this, of course. But if you have a system for generating a selection of PDFs, including a text version would be trivial.

Re: Amazon drops Linux support for generating Kindle ebooks

#89

Post by kgraves »

se32point1 wrote: post #54
kgraves wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's wrong with that? Aren't most people that aren't tech savvy using Windows or Mac?

I fail to see the connection between "tech-savvy" users and this tool, which is a command line tool. Why would a "non-tech-savvy" person even touch this? Either way, we will always have our ways (calibre's ebook converter [which has a GUI, and is available on the platforms that normal people use], pandoc, whatever).

It seems that Amazon has already made their mind up and made a Kindle Previewer for Windows and Mac OS (No Linux), with a GUI and is more 'accessible' than KindleGen.

In this case, Linux support isn't worth it for them.

Re: Amazon drops Linux support for generating Kindle ebooks

#90

Post by Turing_Machine »

liability wrote: post #38
toyg wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generate ePub and convert using something like Calibre's ebook-convert? At the end of the day, isn't an ebook basically a fancy zip with some markup inside...?

> At the end of the day, isn't an ebook basically a fancy zip with some markup inside...? That's what epubs are, plain old zip files with some xhtml, CSS, etc. You can unzip them using standard utilities. Mobi files aren't zips, but the premise is roughly the same and conversion between the two is usually seamless.

It's almost, but not quite "plain".

You have to make sure that the mimetype file is the very first file in the zip, and that the mimetype file is uncompressed.

Otherwise the epub will fail validation and will not work on many readers.

So yeah, you can unzip them with any standard zip utility, but zipping them back up requires some care.

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