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Looking for an ebook reader (hardware) which doesn't hold a proprietary OS (feddit.it)

submitted 1 year ago by dontblink@feddit.it to c/foss@beehaw.org

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I wanna buy an ebook reader but i don't want any amazon or other companies shit in there, just something i can connect to my pc, pass ebooks in different formats into it and read.

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[–] bbbhltz@beehaw.org 57 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I've looked into this in the past and settled on Kobo. You can disable the telemetry and never use the the Rakuten account part and have a very good ereader... And you can install the open source KOReader software.

https://github.com/koreader/koreader

MobileRead forums and wiki are a good resource for ebook stuff.

For example, a breakdown of the hidden configs on Kobo devices https://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/Kobo_Configuration_Options

[–] Ferk@kbin.social 22 points 1 year ago (1 children)

+1 on this. Kobos actually use Linux under the hood. And although the default UI is proprietary, it's super easy to install KOReader.
You don't even need to hack into it some custom firmware, just a sideloader, which normally doesn't break even if you actually updated the base firmware.
Here the official tutorial on how to do it: https://github.com/koreader/koreader/wiki/Installation-on-Kobo-devices

[–] cnnrduncan@beehaw.org 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

AFAIK every single ebook reader on the market actually runs Linux under the hood!

[–] polarity_inverter@startrek.website 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

in parts of europe you can get some kobos branded as "tolino" - they have the same hardware, but actually run on android

[–] N1cknamed@feddit.nl 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

My kobo is great. You never have to connect it to the internet if you don't want to. I transfer epub files to it via USB.

[–] reallyzen@unilem.org 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Same here. I only buy drm-free from ebooksdotcom, and transfer them with ~~caliber~~ calibre. My kobo wifi isn't even configured.

[–] massive_bereavement@kbin.social 9 points 1 year ago

*Calibre. (link for those that don't know it: https://calibre-ebook.com/)

[–] bbbhltz@beehaw.org 5 points 1 year ago

and (for anyone reading this later) if you are all about keeping things up to date, you can sideload firmware

https://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/Kobo_Firmware_Releases#Firmware_Download_Link

(at your own risk)

[–] sapetoku@lemmy.ca 3 points 1 year ago

Kobo readers are really neat, I've been using them for over a decade and I don't remember ever using a Rakuten account or even going online with them for anything but software updates or connecting to my local library system (which Kindle can't do). I use Calibre on the desktop to manage, convert and load my reader and that's it.