Damn, calibre was so good for so long. This is why I love open source though! No big deal, just time to move on.
Worst part is going to be having to tell people about it every time calibre gets recommended for the next year or so lol, like the whole Organic Maps > CoMaps thing
Interesting, thank you
Calibre…the software that looks like it was designed in 1998? The one that isn’t very intuitive? They think AI is what it needs?
The guy behind it isn’t really known for caring what users think. Looks like he’s even disabled issues for Calibre on Github lmao
Does Calibre’s devs have an email I can contact to express my utter disgust?
Kovid Goyal
Used to be a fairly accessible guy.
Took me longer than I care to admit to get the origin of the name.
What do you call a fish with no eye? Fsh
You know, what I really, really want? A good EPUB/CBZ/PDF viewer. Simple, with scrolling mode that works seamlessly for all three filetypes (yes, including between EPUB chapters), and that doesn’t pretend to be some sort of library or bookmarks system or whatever. It should do that one thing — to show the contents of my ebook — and do it well.
The nearest of that I got was Okular. It would be amazing… if not by a certain little bug, that makes all EPUB/PDF pictures look like arse.
But no, we can’t have that in 2025. Instead we have a bloody book “manager” that was already bloated before the AI bubble, becoming even more bloated so you can ask it what to read next. *sigh*
Koreader maybe? Calibre is intended for library / e-reader device management, the viewer it has is mostly just for a quick preview look and not really intended for actually reading.
I tried it some time ago, and I didn’t like it. Dictionary lookup, Wikipedia lookup, calendar, reading statistics, news downloader, it litters the directory of the file with a subdirectory for “metadata”… too kitchen-sinky.
And as usual, a completely different interface from everything else, that sticks out like a sore thumb, and looks more like something you’d use in a cell phone than in an actual computer. Even Qt plays nicer in GTK DEs and vice versa.
The best one I’ve found was the one Jako³13 recommended, Zathura. Not perfect, but good. But that’s only because Okular is rendering images really bad.
(I guess it’s time I stop being a lazy arse and make my own reader. With blackjack and hookers!)
Have you tried Zathura? It’s a ui-less PDF reader with plugins for a lot of different formats, including the ones you mentioned. All navigation is done via keyboard and once you learn the shortcuts it’s a breeze.
I’m trying it now, based on your recommendation (thank you, by the way!). Had to grab a file from some PPA to enable EPUB support, but it worked. Just Mint things, I guess.
The lack of UI is a bit meh, but I’m okay with it: mouse and keyboard controls work really well. Way better than xreader’s. And unlike Okular, it isn’t ruining the pictures. I’m keeping it, at least until KDE fixes the Okular bug!
That brings me back to the topic. I’ve been using Linux for, like, 15 years? And in Linux nowadays there are lots of options, but they usually boil down to
- I don’t need an interface.
- Half-working, half-broken. Our alternative is also like this, but the working halves are different, so use both of us together.
- I got a kitchen sink~ it plays Merry Christmas, once you send an e-mail through the pipe!
Then I look at my Android phone and it’s the same. And based on what people say about Windows and Mac, it’s the same too. Perhaps I’m being nostalgic, but shouldn’t we (people in general) be rethinking what we want from software?
For example, Calibre. I personally don’t want a library manager, but plenty people do so that’s fine. Which are the features that they expect, that actually improve their experience when reading books? Do they really benefit from plopping an AI system into that? Isn’t this a bit already too outside the scope of what a library manager is supposed to do?
Why did they add an ai to calibre what the hell T—T
Literally just got gifted a kobo I was setting this up for 🥲
Why would they add LLMs to Calibre? Maybe update the dogshit UI instead. Insane that even Calibre is headed down the LLM shitfest.
Why would they add LLMs to Calibre?
It looks like it’s so you can “discuss” a book with the overgrown autocomplete, or ask it what to read next if you are incapable of independent thought. I could, sort of, understand making a plugin for this sort of nonsense, but building it in, as a brief check of their site suggests has happened, is so utterly ridiculous that it defies rationality.
I liked Calibre, I’ve even contributed code to it, but it looks like I’ll be investigating this fork now.
Which is funny because that is one of the things that LLMs are particularly bad at.
Dam…and here I was thinking about what I just read, like a fool 🤧
Why would they add LLMs to Calibre?
So it can scan text.
I have not heard of this program until just now, but presumably they’re not integrating an LLM so you can stop and chat with fictional characters. It’s gotta be an overpowered answer to ‘here is some plaintext, populate its metadata.’
That name is awful and will reduce how many users it will get
What would the difference be between it having one user and it having a million users? I doubt they are banking on getting mad donations, there are easier ways to make money.
Its a niche fork of a niche product that doesn’t make money for anyone involved in making it. They don’t care.
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Considering it’s already the first result searching “calibre without AI” it’ll probably be fine. No one will use this who doesn’t already know about calibre.
