this post was submitted on 30 Sep 2024
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You Should Know

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YSK - for all the things that can make your life easier!

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This is not an anti-Kindle rant. I have purchased (rented?) several Kindle titles myself.

However, YSK that you are only licensing access to the book from Amazon, you don't own it like a physical book.

There have been cases where Amazon deletes a title from all devices. (Ironically, one version of "1984" was one such title).

https://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/technology/companies/18amazon.html

There have also been cases where a customer violated Amazon's terms of service and lost access to all of their Kindle e-books. Amazon has all the power in this relationship. They can and do change the rules on us lowly peasants from time to time.

Here are the terms of use:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=201014950

Note, there are indeed ways to download your books and import them into something like Calibre (and remove the DRM from the books). If you do some web searches (and/or search YouTube) you can probably figure it out.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Is there a FOSS OS for Kindles?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago (2 children)

No but you can jailbreak them, and their OS is linux-based; unfortunately if it's a new Kindle or newish with an up to date firmware, you might have to wait for someone to release a new jb method. With a jb you can install Koreader (which alone can do everything useful), but also people (mobileread forums) have compiled a working Python library and a terminal with bash..mostly useful to show off :) you can run neofetch

If you're like me and need Koreader (has impeccable pdf reflow and stardict support), a Kobo is way easier, and you don't have to wait

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I've been using KOReader on my phone now, ever since my Kindle one day decided to be unrecognisable on my computer. Couldn't find a solution to fix it so it became a glorified paperweight.

The screen real estate is slightly degraded, but fuck if I give Amazon any more of my money. Besides, I get to store epubs as epubs instead of converting to that god awful mobi format.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

Way to go, modern phone screens are not too bad..I think a big reason I enjoy dumb ereaders is the lack of multitasking lol

Your kindle probably has a busted micro usb port (the cables too can stop working for data transfer), no idea if it's too difficult to solder a new one.. I would try cleaning it up really well first

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

With a jb you can install Koreader

So yes?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

It's a powerful program but not a complete OS replacement

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Oh, so it's like a sideloaded Kindle app?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

Yes exactly! On Kindles to install that app we need a jailbreak (and the procedure will depend on device and firmware version, since we are trying to circumvent Amazon limits), most of the OS stays the same and you can still use the normal "reader" app.

Of course if you are already satisfied by the normal reader all you need to do to gain more freedom is managing your books with Calibre on a computer, it'll take care of converting to kindle format if you put an epub in it, and send it to device, with just one click. My dad does this after I showed him once or twice and he's not techy at all.