LibreRead: Self-Hosted Free(Libre) Ebook Reader | Hacker News Reader

LibreRead: Self-Hosted Free(Libre) Ebook Reader

github.com

26 pointsak199111 comments

Calibre [1] is GPLv3, and a very capable format converter and library manager as well as a reader. If you're looking for something that's ready to use while waiting for LibreRead to reach 1.0, it might make you a very good option!

[1] http://calibre-ebook.com/

I believe calibre is just about to release a built in server that allows you to read books using the web browser directly

Calibre currently includes a web server (calibre-server) that lets you browse and search your library. It doesn't include a reader, but there are browser extensions for firefox and chrome that will let you read your books in your browser also.

I was hoping this was about free hardware. I want a free e-reader that can handle djvu and pdf (got lots of math books, formulas don't look good on other formats), and has no wifi connectivity (to not present the temptation of internet distraction). Do you know if it's possible to buy such a thing? Are you doing something like reviving OpenInkpot?

EPDs are still pretty expensive, but I don't see what's stopping someone from making an open hardware Kobo clone, if they can find somewhere to source 5-7" panels (difficult - I think 4.3" is about as large as easy-to-find solutions go - but probably not impossible)

I'm pretty sure my employer would come down on me if I did something like that - ereaders are a pretty small market, even if you don't personally work on anything remotely similar - but how hard could it be? Make a Raspberry Pi hat, stuff a Zero in, and you can probably get renders of pdf/epub/mobi/html/etc pages going fairly easily, to propagate to the display.

Well, maybe not a Pi Zero; the new versions come with wifi. But still.

Kobo works well without wifi and you hack the Linux.

I have somewhat similar project: https://h5reader.azurewebsites.net/

Quite poor on features (does not support images or even chapter progress), but I've read many EPubs through it. Syncs books and position via Google Drive.

Does not work in Edge though, Microsoft could not fix a bug for a year (and still can't). https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/platfor...

The beauty is you can add it as "app" on Android and/or iOS. And it works with desktop as well.

What advantage does this project have over Calibre, which is the currently dominant open-source self-hosted free(libre) ebook reader?

Looks cool. How do you set it up?

Hey, I'm working on LibreRead. I'm yet to write setup script :)

It's written in Go in macOS. So we have to cross compile it for different systems.

If you want to try a demo, You could follow this thread where I'll post links for testing. https://github.com/mikaelbr/open-source-ideas/issues/11

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