I have a laptop, currently running Elementary OS, an increasingly popular Linux distribution, derived from Ubuntu Linux. I have just bought a Kobo Touch e-reader, and would like to share my experiences of the two working together.
Later I discovered I could get better results by turning off Calibre's default Kobo Touch plugin, and replacing it with the Extended Kobo Touch plugin. This turns the epub format books into Kobo's own kepub version, which improves some formatting, such as page margins, and also allows the Kobo Touch to display the book title and chapter progress as with its native books.
If you want to use ADE to transfer books to an e-reader, you will need to authorise both the computer and the e-reader using the same Adobe account. Once this is done, it is then quite easy to download protected ebooks using ADE and transfer them to the Kobo Touch.
Setting up the Kobo
There was no need to download any software or connect to a computer to set up the Kobo Touch. The e-reader connected itself to a wifi network, set up a Kobo account for me and download updates to the firmware without any problems.Connecting to the Kobo
Plugging the Kobo Touch into the laptop with the USB cable caused it to be mounted as drive under /media as you would expect.Getting some books
Calibre
I was already running Calibre under Linux, and had some e-books in my library. Transferring these to the Kobo Touch was very simple. Plug the Kobo Touch into the computer and start the software. Choose some books and press the 'Send to Device' button, before ejecting the e-reader. This worked perfectly well.Later I discovered I could get better results by turning off Calibre's default Kobo Touch plugin, and replacing it with the Extended Kobo Touch plugin. This turns the epub format books into Kobo's own kepub version, which improves some formatting, such as page margins, and also allows the Kobo Touch to display the book title and chapter progress as with its native books.
Adobe Digital Editions
Borrowing library books and buying books from other stores involves using Adobe Digital Editions on a computer. This is available for Windows and for Mac, but not for Linux. However it will run on Linux under Wine, which is included or available for most distributions. Wine was already installed on the Linux computer, so I downloaded ADE version 1.7.2 and ran it using Wine. It installed fine, following these instructions. I also managed to get the Kobo Touch to show up in ADE, though this took a few steps.If you want to use ADE to transfer books to an e-reader, you will need to authorise both the computer and the e-reader using the same Adobe account. Once this is done, it is then quite easy to download protected ebooks using ADE and transfer them to the Kobo Touch.
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