Where to find FBReader for the XO—and free .epub picture books for kids
The FBReader link given in the TeleBlog’s XO review no longer works. Go here instead to come up with a link to plug into Step #3 within “Some installation details.” The version you want seems to be fbreader-0.8.10-1.fc8.i386.rpm. I’ll welcome confirmation that all’s well again. Sorry for the change, folks. I have no control over the links at the other end. For another FBReader source, see the link in Ben Combe’s super-useful comment.
FBReader, of course, can read the IDPF’s .epub format, among others; and if you’re looking for free books in that format for kids, just drop by Bob DuCharme’s site. Thanks for your work on this, Bob!
Among Bob’s 16 titles are Aladdin or the Wonderful Lamp, Little Bo Beep and The Sleeping Beauty Picture Book.
While you’re there, check out his comments on the typographical limits of FBReader. I think it’s great when people like something enough to explain how it could be better.
Detail: Ben is working on making FBReader launchable through the XO’s Activity menu. See his comment for more.
Related: Ann Gentle’s FBReader guide with screenshots (thanks, Robert).
Technorati Tags: linux apps
January 23rd, 2008 at 5:02 am
The link is to a live depository, so as bug fixes are added to Fedora, the name will change. When it didn’t work for me, I just went to the parent location in my desktop browser, then grabbed the current FBReader package name, giving me
http://mirrors.kernel.org/fedora/updates/7/i386/fbreader-0.8.10-1.fc7.i386.rpm
I did a little work on making an activity to launch FBReader last week; I took the Opera activity and modified it, but I have a problem that it creates two icons — one for the activity which is blank and another unnamed one for FBReader. It’s usable that way, but after quiting FBReader, you have to manually stop the original activity. I also had to do some configuration of font sizes; making the leading 200% fixed a lot of overlap, but that feels like a workaround rather than a true fix.
January 23rd, 2008 at 7:05 am
See also Anne Gentle’s how to guide on using fbreader (with screenshots
January 23rd, 2008 at 12:59 pm
I’ve installed FBreader on my XO, and it does indeed work very nicely, except for one thing - I can’t figure out how to exit! Any hints? I’ve just been killing it from the home view, but that gets rid of all my font/margin settings.
January 23rd, 2008 at 1:14 pm
Shoulda done some more googling before posting. From Mike Wilson’s blog I found out that ctrl-q quits.
January 26th, 2008 at 11:55 am
Yesterday I manged to compile the latest version of the FBReader 0.8.12 with my bugfix for the OLPC related line spacing bug. You my get the latest version from my web site at:
http://imagic.weizmann.ac.il/~dov/olpc
January 29th, 2008 at 10:03 am
Be sure to take it outside and do some reading in full sunlight. The screen is amazing.