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Open-source, DRM-free Kindle alternative

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Re: Open-source, DRM-free Kindle alternative

#101

Post by Brian_K_White »

m463 wrote: post #73
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting , but I really have no interest in a laptop I can't type on. On a tablet, I just acknowledge that I won't be typing, and I live with it due to the form factor's other advantage (namely, it's easier to lay back on the couch with a tablet than a laptop).

I think there's an actual keyboard on the other side of the e-ink screen. So It appears to have an lcd display, an e-ink display and a keyboard.

No the keyboard is a virtual keyboard using the e-ink display.

You can type, in the sense that what you type is appearing on the fast color screen not the e-ink, so you can go as fast as you want.

But it's probably terrible because there are no mechanical keys, just a flat touch screen displaying a virtual keyboard like an ipad.

Re: Open-source, DRM-free Kindle alternative

#102

Post by utf_8x »

mmm_grayons wrote: post #47
utf_8x wrote: post #39

The kindle doesn't lock you into Amazon's ecosystem though... It supports many different formats, Calibre allows you to convert your books to a kindle-specific format for convenience and I've yet to find an ebook DRM that can't be easily cracked...

Same experience here. I have literally never purchased a single book from Amazon, though I have read lots of their free "classics editions". I've jailbroken my paperwhite so I can read/do whatever I want, but I still get great battery life and the ability to do things like send to my kindle over e-mail. I get the free-as-in-freedom guys' argument, but I'm perfectly happy with my device and like the convenience of a s…

Exactly. Don't get me wrong, I love open source hardware as much as the next guy but fixing something that isn't broken is a plain old waste of time.

Re: Open-source, DRM-free Kindle alternative

#103

Post by stonogo »

komali2 wrote: post #23
GekkePrutser wrote: post #20

This isn't really equivalent to a kindle though. The fonts are basic, there's no enclosure. Fonts are a huge thing for eReaders and Amazon has spent a lot of time perfecting them. It's also important to remember that it's perfectly possible to use the Kindle without DRM. You can just put your own books on it with a cable, though you'll have to convert them to MOBI as it doesn't do ePub. The same can be done with othe…

> Even if you have an open eBook reader, where are you going to get the books from? There's a huge ebook pirating scene, so you could always do that, buying the book beforehand if the ethics disturb you. What is sad to me is that there's no way to check out an ebook from a library in a way that doesn't involve Amazon.

Overdrive is supported on-device by Kobo ereaders.

Re: Open-source, DRM-free Kindle alternative

#104

Post by efreak »

komali2 wrote: post #23
GekkePrutser wrote: post #20

This isn't really equivalent to a kindle though. The fonts are basic, there's no enclosure. Fonts are a huge thing for eReaders and Amazon has spent a lot of time perfecting them. It's also important to remember that it's perfectly possible to use the Kindle without DRM. You can just put your own books on it with a cable, though you'll have to convert them to MOBI as it doesn't do ePub. The same can be done with othe…

> Even if you have an open eBook reader, where are you going to get the books from? There's a huge ebook pirating scene, so you could always do that, buying the book beforehand if the ethics disturb you. What is sad to me is that there's no way to check out an ebook from a library in a way that doesn't involve Amazon.

Overdrive, which is what most libraries I know of use, supports Kindle, Adobe, and it's open format (which IIRC cannot be downloaded and must be viewed in the browser/app one page at a time).

Re: Open-source, DRM-free Kindle alternative

#105

Post by efreak »

wojciii wrote: post #87

This is not a replacement. I love my Kobo but tend to use my phone because I can buy books using the Amazon android app. I hate the UI (both navigation and the suggestions on which are never what I want to read next) but it works ok for buying books. A replacement would be a book market place where I can buy DRM free books and use clients on any ebook reader to download them to native format supported by the reader.…

I really wish the publishers/distributors supported OPDS. Either add in a user/password prompt that's not to speed, or just put tokens in the URLs. I'd buy far more ebooks from any distributor willing to do this.

Re: Open-source, DRM-free Kindle alternative

#106

Post by chris37879 »

mmm_grayons wrote: post #48
GekkePrutser wrote: post #20

This isn't really equivalent to a kindle though. The fonts are basic, there's no enclosure. Fonts are a huge thing for eReaders and Amazon has spent a lot of time perfecting them. It's also important to remember that it's perfectly possible to use the Kindle without DRM. You can just put your own books on it with a cable, though you'll have to convert them to MOBI as it doesn't do ePub. The same can be done with othe…

> it doesn't do ePub I was able to easily jailbreak mine and it does ePub fine after that. I don't think a home-made device offers me any more freedom than a jailbroken kindle; I can drop to a shell and do all the same things. That said, while I enjoy tinkering, basically the only non-stock things I do are read ePubs and play zork. I'd prefer to save my tinkering for a desktop or laptop and keep a device just for rea…

Unfortunately that's getting harder and harder to do. I have a second gen Kindle Oasis from about 3 years ago and there is no working jailbreak for it for any recent firmwares. It's really annoying because I love the hardware, I just wanna tinker with the software.

Re: Open-source, DRM-free Kindle alternative

#107

Post by efreak »

Markoff wrote: post #85

who would want to read anything on 4.2" display? I've had bigger (4.5") display in smartphone 8 years ago and I would not call even that suitable for reading books why is nobody discussing this and why they don't show the device in hand to show how ridiculously small it is? > Main features: > 4.2" inch e-paper display with partial refresh, driven over a dedicated SPI bus. https://github.com/joeycastillo/The-Open-Book

I did all my (non-school) reading for my first half of college on a Nintendo DSi, before I got a tablet. High resolution, large screen, good backlight, fast display refresh rate--all of these improve the experience, but none of them is required, and if you've never used them then all you know is this is so much better than reading on my laptop. Sure, having a small screen is a little frustrating, but having easy buttons to change pages makes up for it (the DSi RL buttons were better than all tablets I've ever had) and once you get into your reading, you stop noticing.

Tips:

- set the background color as close as you can to the bezel color, and remove the margins if you have a small screen - Set the font size a little large if you have a low resolution screen; antialiasing makes it much easier to read, even if your screen is also small.

Tips if your device has a slow processor and little ram (I had all or most of this automated at the time, through a batch file and a custom calibre conversion profile)

- resize or remove images. I stored mine alongside the book rather than in it, saved as smaller 8bit PNG files. - split your ebooks into multiple files (~100kb/file without images allowed pages to load in <1/2 second) - Make sure the files in your epub are actually split by chapter (calibre can do this automatically, I think) - if you have control over file compression (I use a script to generate epubs), don't use high compression--especially if there's images.

Re: Open-source, DRM-free Kindle alternative

#108

Post by wegs »

Brian_K_White wrote: post #100
wegs wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One big difference is that if I order a parts list and PCB based on your web site, if you've made an error or have a part missing, I'm stuck debugging. If you're putting together a kit, you've (presumably) gone through and made sure it's all there and all works together. That includes the auxiliary stuff, like firmware, or having a case. Another big difference is if I place three orders, and one comes up out-of-stuck…

As someone who has several pcb + digikey projects, I don't buy this. It's literally 2 clicks instead of one click. 3 clicks to add the 3d-printed part fromShapeways. It IS already exactly, a kit. You get a box in the mail that has everything in it, it just says DigiKey on the box instead of mydumbproject.org That's 3 fully pre-loaded urls all together in one spot. No uploading a csv. Just click the link and up pops a…

I'm not complaining about what you're doing. I'm describing what I want. You can accuse me of being unreasonable, but people said the same thing about remote controls. Who'd be lazy to not just want to walk over and switch a channel on the TV? And countless other conveniences.

I'm also not asking YOU to do anything differently. You have a day job, and with however many kits you've made, no way in heck this would compete with YOUR day job. I also want a blueberry plant in my back yard. Neither you, nor this ereader guy, nor even the local garden store have any obligation to give me that. It's a free market.

But yes, I do think there's a pretty good business in providing that last little bit of service. I'd pay for it, and I suspect many others would as well. You can view this as an integration of Digikey+Shapeways+PCB. Or you can view this as an expansion of AdaFruit/SEEED/etc. to be more open. Or you can view this as moving cheap Chinese manufacturing up-market.

And I'd buy an open source Kobo too, for that matter. There's a world of difference between a rootable device and an open source device too. Most rootable devices I have are now sitting in storage somewhere, unused, when the fun ran out and the maintenance overhead kicked in. One or two were never used, as rooting became a pain-in-the-butt, some feature I needed was missing, or there was some hardware change between the rooted version and the one I bought. Most open source devices I have are in active use, some with a few tweaks.

I'm glad to support open. I value my freedom. I also like having things which keep working, and open mitigates risks (if the manufacturer goes under, the community sometimes takes over). I'm glad to pay for that.

However, I'm busy, and I'm not glad to buy a headache. That goes double for people less technical than you or me, ones who want projects for kids, etc.

Re: Open-source, DRM-free Kindle alternative

#109

Post by Markoff »

efreak wrote: post #107
Markoff wrote: post #85

who would want to read anything on 4.2" display? I've had bigger (4.5") display in smartphone 8 years ago and I would not call even that suitable for reading books why is nobody discussing this and why they don't show the device in hand to show how ridiculously small it is? > Main features: > 4.2" inch e-paper display with partial refresh, driven over a dedicated SPI bus. https://github.com/joeycastillo/The-Open-Book

I did all my (non-school) reading for my first half of college on a Nintendo DSi, before I got a tablet. High resolution, large screen, good backlight, fast display refresh rate--all of these improve the experience, but none of them is required, and if you've never used them then all you know is this is so much better than reading on my laptop . Sure, having a small screen is a little frustrating, but having easy but…

you are ruining your eyesight by using such small display/letters and fixed focused distance, it may not look like that when you are young, but give it few years and you will see results

4.2" is OK for temporary reading for very short periods, but ebooks are usually used for long reading sessions and one would want to use it for years before throwing away

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