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farang · Posted: Fri Oct 01, 2004 4:57 pm Post subject: EBOOK

I looking at a standalone system for an EBook using Linux. I looked at Knoppix but it is overkill for what I want and takes up too much space on a CDROM.

Has any body had any experience with LNX BBC? Ita appears the ideal size but what I have seen on the internet it is difficult to oonfigure for a Linux Tyro (eg the GAR system).

There must be a simple way to set up a bootable LNX BBC system that has OO and automatically loads the first page.

Regards

farang
_________________

i would never join a club that would let me in as a member! - groucho
aw- we've been thrown out of better clubs than this - Abbott & Costello

mike80808 · Posted: Sat Oct 02, 2004 3:21 pm Post subject:

Why don't you try your hand at rebuilding Knoppix, just minus the parts/apps you don't need?

There's several distros based on that method. OOO is just another Linux app, as far as the OS is concerned. As are most of the apps.

You probably won't need any network features (servers, clients, etc.), or multimedia (sound, video, etc.) although a browser can come in handy for viewing local static documentation.
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Thanks for all the fishes, Xandros.

farang · Posted: Sat Oct 09, 2004 5:30 pm Post subject:

Thanks Mike 80808.

I have a copy of how to do it off the Web but seems very complex and involved for a Tyro. However, i'll give it a go and let you know how I went.

I have also just found out that Knoppix does not work in Apple. This sort of defeats my plan for a standalone system thats independent of the OS.

Might have to go the way of HTML after all.

Regards

farang
_________________

i would never join a club that would let me in as a member! - groucho
aw- we've been thrown out of better clubs than this - Abbott & Costello

CrowDaddy · Xplorer Joined: 10 Jun 2004 Posts: 32 Location: Michigan

May I suggest that you try Puppy? It is a complete linux os that loads itself entirely into RAM; once loaded, you can remove the cd and have full use of your removable storage. This distro can be loaded onto the hard drive, on a usb device, or even put on a cd with other files. Take a look at it and see what you think. Sorry I don't have the link handy but Google Puppy Linux and you will have no trouble finding the website. If you decide to try it and don't want to download it, you can get it (and just about any other linux distro) for $2.00 shipped at Edmunds-Enterprizes.com. Hope this helped.

farang · Posted: Fri Sep 09, 2005 4:57 pm Post subject:

Thanks CrowDaddy i will have a look at that.

regards

farang
_________________

i would never join a club that would let me in as a member! - groucho
aw- we've been thrown out of better clubs than this - Abbott & Costello

woodsmoke

Hi folks,
I use e-books on a Dell laptop that I bought for chump change and would DEARLY love to dual boot with Xandros and the Win2K that is presently on it.
I read, Embarassed

I know, I need to hang my head here..... pulp fiction from the twenties and thirties, the Shadow, etc. and also any other interesting thing I find on the thing,

and I also use it at the j/c whereat I teach when a computer is down....
Anyhooooo......... I've tried Puppy on my PI systems and even up to PII and didn't get it to work.

I'll try it on an AMD Duron 700 mhz and on a P4 1.3 ghz in an hour or so just to see how it goes.....

But, I REALLY would like to "help" in any way I can to somehow get Xandros, or Linux in general, to have an E-book reader that is stable.

I've been all over the Linux forums about project Gutenberg for Linux and actually e-mailed them about doing "dirty work" I CERTAINLY can't write code.... but I could "test" the reader on the stuff I donate.

So..... I REALLY would like to help get an E-book reader that is even relatively stable.... for Linux

Could we(I know, you guys are the folks that will carry the load, you can do the coding, but I'll load it on everything I can and possibly help with the "appearance" and whatever...... somehow maybe

could XANDROS be THE distro that somehow gets an E-book reader up and percolating in a STABLE fashion....??

Sheeeeshhh...if that could be done....

Ain't Xandros great!!
woodsmoke
_________________
If the eco-ists would only shut up, I wonder if the sound of their droning would be replaced by the sound of normal people fitting solar panels and making soup from nettles and twigs.(J Clarkson)

farang · Posted: Wed Sep 28, 2005 5:26 am Post subject:

Hi Woodsmoke

When you say a reader do you want to read existing e books? If this is the case then it will depend on the e book system. If it is a pdf then there is no problem as Xandros will happily read pdf documents. If it is ms reader then I think there is a problem as an ms reader book requires some sort of clearance from ms however, somebody else disputed this.

If you want a new e book system it is already there in Open Office. There is no reason why an e book cannot be written as an open office document and the reader would be OO on either Linux or MS.

What I wanted was something like Acrobat which would produce a pdf e book (complete with hyperlinks) that works on any system with a pdf reader and will boot in automatically (which MS can do) when you insert the CD.

From what I can tell Puppy is similar to the other lightweight systems that will work on a linux and ms but not apple. If your existing e books did not work under Puppy then they may be in ms reader format as Puppy should be able to read a pdf book.

What we need is a CD with just OO and the ebook in OO that will automaticaly boot into the contents page with the ability to hyperlink to the reuired chapter.

regards

farang
_________________

i would never join a club that would let me in as a member! - groucho
aw- we've been thrown out of better clubs than this - Abbott & Costello

woodsmoke · Posted: Wed Sep 28, 2005 5:53 am Post subject: ebook reader

Hi farang,
Yes, I use e-books using ms reader. At first I tried acrobat but it just seemed to botch things up, both on the desktop and on the handheld.

When I was researching this on the net, with the Linux version of project gutenberg's e-book thing, I don't remember anything about open office just reading them.

Up until when I got the laptop, I read them on a Viewsonic Handheld PC with WinCE on it. Problem was eyestrain! but I read them when I'm waiting somewhere, the old hurry up and wait!

However, with the laptop I read them a lot at home now on it.

I could try dualbooting or just put the Windoz version of OO on it.

I read around some on trying to get Xandros or Linux in general on a hand held, and got the impression that it was iffy and I really don't want to take a chance on messing up the WinCE system, but I might try putting oppen office or just maybe the word program, or maybe ABIWORD(if it will run under windowz) and then that would read the pdf, but, then again, I didn't have real good luck getting pdf files to work with the e-books... anyhow thanks for the tips,

If you have other comments I would like to hear them(see them!).

Ain't Xandros great!
woodsmoke
_________________
If the eco-ists would only shut up, I wonder if the sound of their droning would be replaced by the sound of normal people fitting solar panels and making soup from nettles and twigs.(J Clarkson)

woodsmoke · Posted: Wed Oct 26, 2005 11:15 am Post subject: zipped e-book in Firefox

Hi,
this technique isn't very elegant, but it works.

One can get e-books in a variety of formats: rocket e-book, MSReader format, pdf., zip, and others.

For some reason zip defaults to html, at least where I get my books, and I can open them in Firefox.

I tried the other formats to see if they would open in Firefox and they would not.

By the by, I get my books at BlackMask on Line. They tend toward the "sensational"... the Shadow, Tarzan etc. but also carry a full line of the other stuff such as Plato and Thomas Jefferson for you smart folks out there! Laughing

Anyhow, I just figured this out a couple of days ago and thought I would pass it on.

Aint Xandros great!
woodsmoke
_________________
If the eco-ists would only shut up, I wonder if the sound of their droning would be replaced by the sound of normal people fitting solar panels and making soup from nettles and twigs.(J Clarkson)

helmsdeeper · Posted: Fri Nov 18, 2005 6:52 am Post subject:

Is there a linux ebook program that will display the .lit format? No programs installed in Xandros will display this format, and I REALLY do not want to install ms reader in Crossover, let alone anything else ms..... Wink

_________________
Dualbooting Xandros 4 Premium, XP & separate hd running Mepis 6.5 & Debian Etch on Emachines W3052 with AMD Sempron 3000+, 1.5G/Ram, Nvidia GeForce 4 Ti 4600AGP 128MB. Registered as Linux user #402698 Previous GLPW

farang · Posted: Wed Jan 11, 2006 5:08 am Post subject:

I understand .lit requires the reader to be activated by MS and I can't see how a linux system can overcome that. It's a shame because MS Reader produces a good looking book.

There's quite a bit of information on the MS Reader website and appears to be html based but i'm no expert in this.Woodsmoke found that the zip files defaults to html and can be read that way. To stay in open source this could be tried with 7-zip.

regards

farang
_________________

i would never join a club that would let me in as a member! - groucho
aw- we've been thrown out of better clubs than this - Abbott & Costello

helmsdeeper · Posted: Wed Jan 11, 2006 7:37 am Post subject:

I hit Google and found a program called convertlit. I downloaded a version 1.4 & the latest one 1.8. If I can get it going I'll let you know.
_________________
Dualbooting Xandros 4 Premium, XP & separate hd running Mepis 6.5 & Debian Etch on Emachines W3052 with AMD Sempron 3000+, 1.5G/Ram, Nvidia GeForce 4 Ti 4600AGP 128MB. Registered as Linux user #402698 Previous GLPW

ackray · Posted: Thu Apr 20, 2006 1:29 pm Post subject:

[quote="helmsdeeper"]I hit Google and found a program called convertlit. I [/quote]

Right. For most of the proprietary formats around there will be a converter to be found somewhere . . . .

In Xandros I use Text Editor to read all of the books I have converted to txt format.

For bookmarking I keep a 'notes.txt' shortcut on my desktop. So I can simply paste in the last sentence and do a search for it later when I reopen the 'book' file.

I' really like to see a real book reader though. I like the one palm has best so far.

woodsmoke · Posted: Thu Apr 20, 2006 11:32 pm Post subject:

ackray:

Now THAT is a really imaginative solution: