Linux on ebook reader

5 Best Ebook Readers for Linux

Digital books provide a convenient way to carry a large library of books in your smartphones, computers, and cloud storage. The book reading experience on these devices depends on the reader’s software. This article will list various ebook management and reading apps for Linux. Some of these apps go beyond being simple readers and allow you to manage your entire digital book collection and convert them in different formats.

Calibre

Calibre is an all-in-one ebook management software that allows you to read, manage, and convert digital books. It supports a multitude of ebook file formats for both reading and conversion purposes. It can sync your book collection and reading progress across multiple devices. Calibre is a completely free and open-source app, being in development for over a decade. It is considered to be one of the most feature-packed and comprehensive ebook management suites available for desktop PCs.

To install Calibre in Ubuntu, run the command below:

If there is no other ebook reader installed on your system, Calibre will automatically associate itself with popular ebook file formats like “epub”. You can launch the calibre reader by double-clicking on any valid ebook file format or you can right-click on the file, click on “Open With Other Application” and select e-book viewer app from the popup window. To launch the standalone Calibre ebook viewer app, click on the “E-book Viewer” app from the application launcher.

Calibre ebook viewer supports user bookmarks, syncing reading progress, changing styles of the book, dictionary lookup, etc. You can access settings of the ebook by right-clicking on any ebook opened in the Calibre e-book viewer app.

FBReader

FBReader or “Favorite Book Reader” is an ebook reader for PC and mobile operating systems. Some of the features of FBReader include support for numerous ebook file formats, support for opening files directly from compressed archives, options for managing and organizing your ebook collection, syncing of reading progress, automatic justification and hyphenation of text, text search, CSS styling, cloud storage, cloud sync, a web-based viewer, etc.

To install FBReader in Ubuntu, run the command below:

KOReader

KOReader is a free, open-source, and cross-platform ebook reader for desktop computers, mobiles, and other handheld devices. It is one of the rare third-party ebook readers that work on e-ink devices like Kindle and Kobo. KOReader features include support for multiple file formats, changing styles and formatting of the books, automatic hyphenation, support for Calibre network library, text search, dictionary definitions, translation support via Google translate, and an extensive plugin system.

You can get KOReader “deb” packages or “AppImage” files from here.

Once you have downloaded the appropriate file, run one of the following commands (replace ):

GNOME Books

GNOME Books is available in the default repositories of most of the GNOME-based Linux distributions. The ebook reader is pretty basic and lacks many features compared to other readers mentioned in this article. However, its main focus is on providing a minimal and clutter-free user interface for reading books. If you want something that just works out of the box without hundreds of options, this app may be apt for you.

To install GNOME books in Ubuntu, run the command below:

Foliate

Foliate is a free and open-source ebook reader for Linux. It aims to provide a clean, modern, and distraction-free interface for reading books on desktop computers. Its feature set is on par with other popular ebook readers and includes all necessary options for changing the book styles and formatting, syncing the reading progress, user bookmarks, text search, dictionary lookup, and so on. Foliate also comes with basic text-to-speech support for ebooks, something that other desktop readers lack.

To install Foliate in Ubuntu or any other Linux distribution, run the command below:

More installation options are available here.

Conclusion

These are some of the best ebook readers available for Linux. Most of the ebook reader software today is focused on mobile and handheld platforms, so not much activity is seen in desktop readers. Mobile devices also include Google’s accurate text-to-speech engine and have edge over desktop readers as they provide users the convenience of reading on the go.

About the author

Nitesh Kumar

I am a freelancer software developer and content writer who loves Linux, open source software and the free software community.

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Best eBook Reader Apps for Ubuntu & Linux Mint

Dedicated eBook reader devices like the Amazon Kindle, Android tablets and smartphones may offer the ultimate experience but you can also read eBooks on your laptop or PC too.

To read ePub eBooks on Ubuntu you will need to install a dedicated eBook reader app, like the ones we list below.

All of the ebook reader apps we feature are capable clients, but there are a couple of standout ones we recommend in particular.

Tip: Websites like The Gutenberg Project allow you download free eBooks as both ePub and mobi (Kindle-friendly) formats. For our tests we used a copy of The Invisible Man by H. G. Wells.

Best eBook Reader Apps for Linux

Bookworm

The back cover blurb for the open-source ebook app Bookworm pitches it as ‘simple’ and ‘focused’ app — and I’m pleased to tell you that the app more than lives up to the claim.

Both an ebook manager and a reader, Bookworm lets you organize, sort and edit your .epub, .PDF, .cbr/cbz and .mobi collection, as well as read them, all from inside the same app.

When reading an ePub or mobi book you can increase/decrease the font size, adjust the margins, tweak the line height and change the background/text color using a handy pop-over menu in the Bookworm toolbar.

The app includes 3 separate profile themes: light (pictured), sepia, and dark, which layers white text over a dark background.

The clean, uncluttered UI of Bookworm helps keep focus squarely on the content. You can use your keyboard arrow keys to advance to the next/prev page, or drag the scrubber along the progress slider displayed at the bottom of the window.

Other toolbar options allow you to view a table of contents (should there be one), bookmark a page, and search for text or phases.

• Supports .epub, .mobi, .cbr/cbz, .pdf
• Lets you edit metadata, including cover art
• Options to customise the reader appearance
• In-book text searching
• Bookmark support

PDF rendering is pretty poor, however, and the app lacks proper tools for page zoom, dual page, etc that dedicated apps like Evince (for .pdf) and MComix (for .cbr) offer as standard.

Summary: Even though handling of PDFs is poor, Bookworm is the best all-round eBook reader app on Ubuntu.

You can install the Bookworm eBook app on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS and above by adding this PPA to your software sources:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:bookworm-team/bookworm

sudo apt update && sudo apt install bookworm

Easy eBook Viewer (GTK+)

The succinctly named ‘Easy Ebook Viewer‘ is, as you might guess from its name, an ebook viewer. As such you won’t find any collection management or metadata editing features here.

But, out of all the apps on this list, Easy Ebook Viewer renders .epub files the best.

And that’s crucial as it doesn’t support any other formats.

The toolbar across as the top of the app lets you can quickly jump to any given page (just enter the page number in the box), has page navigation, and a toggle to get access to a book’s contents page in a sidebar.

The app saves your reading position so that you can quickly resume where you left off when you re-open it. You can use keyboard arrow keys to turn pages, and the preferences hides a basic ‘night mode’.

Although perfectly fine as a reading app a few customisation features wouldn’t hurt, e.g., some control over font sizing, margins, etc.

But perhaps biggest drawback in using this app is that it’s not that easy to install! You can grab the source code from Github and compile it yourself, just be sure to have the relevant GTK Webkit package installed first.

Summary: Easy Ebook Viewer is a simple, lightweight tool that looks greats on the GNOME desktop.

Buka Ebook Reader & Manager

Buka is a relatively new open-source app that’s designed for reading and managing PDF ebooks.

Many ebooks, particularly text books and manuals, come as PDF files. Ubuntu has a basic PDF viewer pre-installed (called ‘Evince’) but Buka is a dedicated reader app designed to “help users focus more on the content” and less on the window chrome that surrounds it.

Buka lets you move between pages of a PDF using your arrow keys (or toolbar buttons); adjust page zoom; view 2 pages side-by-side; and search for text in compatible documents. Should you need it you can also rotate individual pages of a PDF.

For managing your PDFs Buka lets you create separate lists, e.g., ‘Textbooks’, ‘Manuals’, etc, and switch between them easily.

But my favourite feature is the built-in translation tool. It’s network dependant (so won’t work without internet) but is helpful for quickly understanding snippets or phrases of text in documents that aren’t in your native language.

Summary: Buka is a compelling PDF reader app for Ubuntu with many useful features.

Calibre Ebook Software

I’d majorly surprised if you had not already heard about Calibre. It’s a well-established, cross-platform, ‘swiss-army-knife’ of ebook apps.

‘Like overly descriptive prose most of Calibre’s UI is unnecessary.’

It’s perfectly usable as an ebook reader and supports pretty much every format you can throw at it.

Calibre can convert ebooks from one format to another, edit meta-data, add comments, replace cover art, sync with Amazon Kindle, Nook, and Android devices, and… Well, you get the idea: it can do a lot.

But if all you want to do is read books then Calibre comes undone. The viewer opens in a separate window with a nasty, oversized vertical toolbar. The impression given is confusing, cluttered and cumbersome. Like overly descriptive prose most of Calibre’s UI is unnecessary.

Consider Calibre the sprawling multi-book epic to the lightweight summer-reads of other apps on this list.

Summary: A ‘swiss army knife’ of options, but confusing to new users.

GNOME Books

GNOME Books the least mature ebook app on this list, but it is available to install from Ubuntu Software.

More of a manager than a reading app, GNOME Books is able to list all of the ePub, Mobi and CBR files you keep in your home folder, and lets you create ‘collections’ from them — which is handy!

But, oddly, the app is only able to display ePub books — which is confusing!

Feature wise GNOME Book offers more of a pamphlet than a novel. You’ll find no formatting options, no page zooming, no dual-page split screen, and zero support for creating or viewing bookmarks.

You can text search though, and page turning works with your keyboard arrow keys. The app also conveniently remembers the last read page, making it easy to pick up where you last left off.

Summary: GNOME Books is a basic, no-frills eBook reader for Linux.

Best Ebook Reader Apps: Conclusion

Five different ebook readers, all with their own distinct narratives. If you’re looking for an app to open and read ePub eBooks on Ubuntu and would like some basic library features too, Bookworm is well worth picking up.

But each of the other entries have their own merits too.

If you read ePub or PDF eBooks on Ubuntu, and have a favorite app, we’d love to hear why you love it in the comments below!

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