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Discussion (83 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews
I had it on my ereader to check it out, but never got around to it. One time on a long flight I had a Gutenberg Project book that wasn’t rendering correctly and thought I’d give KOReader a try. Spent like 10 minutes trying to find how to disable hyphenation. And even if you get to the right menu, there will be a dozen options to scroll through on 1-3 pages. Maybe if I had internet to check where each setting is to set it up, but it’s not very intuitive to configure. I came from Kobo default reader where all the settings I care about are all front and center and you find them in the first place you look all grouped together.
Also, I realize this is a personal preference, I don’t like the “file explorer” view. I prefer a “library” view like Kobo or Kindle defaults to. If that makes sense.
I'm with you, my reading device is something where I don't want to fiddle or be distracted by settings and options. I just want a stock, opinionated device with good defaults that just works and I have to charge once a month. That's it.
Exact reason why despite having a jailbroken Kindle, I stick to the stock book browser. It's so tough to navigate on an old-gen Kindle with a low refresh rate.
I had the same problem and someone here shared the plugin, it does the job very well independently of your file structure and nesting.
I had the same problem with the missing Home Screen view and that solved it: you can see all your books no matter how deeply nested they are
KOReader is finicky to configure but once you have it set up its hands down the best experience. I use BookShelf as my main UI and BookEnds to configure the header/footer. I also use KOAssistant which lets you select text and chuck it at an LLM to explain/translate/custom-prompt/etc.
It was so nice when reading the Horatio Hornblower series where the old references or nautical terms were foreign to me. Just select a phrase, hit Explain, and in seconds get an LLM response right there on my kindle. Just like how the dictionary works (though obviously the LLM isn’t running locally).
With BookOrbit tracking my reading/annotations and providing my ebooks I’ve reached my perfect reading setup. Using Claude to configure some ESP32-based e-Ink screens to rotate book quotes I’ve personally highlighted in KOReader is peak self-hosted, super custom just tor me.
I’m so glad my coworker encouraged me to go down this route!
but will it explain without giving spoilers?
I’ve thought for a while about writing something that only gives the model access to the book as far as you are. Maybe some king of RAG but with page numbers associated so you can filter “< $currentPage” and being able to ask questions “who is this again?”, “how are they related to X?”. The “world knowledge” is the main thing I’d have to be wary of. It’s going to know Harry is a wizard before you get to that part in the books (albeit that’s early, just making a point).
For the Horatio Hornblower series it was mostly older English phrases that had the feel of a “saying” but I couldn’t be sure of the meaning. Getting a response like “in the late 1700’s this phrase was used to mean…” was really cool, better than having to pull out my phone or just guess.
[0] https://github.com/joshstrange/bookorbit-mcp
[1] This isn’t a “thing”, just Claude code on the CLI that has access to my obsidian notes, home assistant, Unifi, bookorbit, etc. My own, very limited “Claw”. “Speaking” home assistant automations into existence is a whole other topic I could on and on about.
The only thing I'd maybe like is syncing reading progress with TheStoryGraph, but I can't imagine what else I might want.
- DRM support (via a Plugin)
- Dark mode on an older device
- SSH Server
- Custom dictionaries
Next on my list is to find a plugin that can transform imperial to metric for when I’m reading American books
Edit: oh and also something that syncs my progress on books not bought from Amazon on multiple devices
Better page flip area options
Active corners that can do custom things and with layers
More text layout options (although the stock kobo firmware is decent at that already)
It’s a bit cumbersome to setup but once you’re done it pays back in how pleasant it makes the device to use.
- More frontlight options. Ability to toggle on/off easily using corner taps,
- More page layout and typography options e.g. custom fonts,
- Ability to load from Calibre over WiFi (I never plug mine in via USB).
Worth nothing that KOReader doesn't replace the default Kobo firmware. It's easy to install and you launch it from the Kobo firmware so it's easy to quit and go back to normal.
Ah, that's definitely something I missed, sounds like a good reason to give it a try!
The only thing I’m missing now is a stylesheet or something to make a spot on the right edge be free of text as that’s where my external page turner clips (for hands free reading) and it hides part of the book’s text otherwise. If anyone has any clue on how to do it, lmk!
What’s funnier is that both my son and my wife have the Paperwhite 10th generation, but only my wife’s device has dark mode. Same exact device, different software depending on when it was bought.
The second major reason for Jailbreaking is that KOReader can do DRM through a plugin so I was finally able to loan out ebooks from my library. No need for a new device, the 10 year old one works extremely well with the right software
Can't you update it to the latest firmware?
https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=...
That’s what I did before I looked into KOReader and now I’m sad I did
Also, if the rest of the software world is any guide, turning an LLM loose on it would find a new jailbreak in short order.
And then I see my koreader calibre is pointing at localhost:8081.. so maybe there was a proxy?
It’s been a while since I set it up. But it’s possible
Otherwise Tailscale (the company) will be collecting your behavioral metadata every time you use your Kindle (what other hosts it connects to, on what ports, connection open and close timestamps, etc): https://tailscale.com/docs/features/logging#opt-out-of-clien...
Yes obviously the actual connection contents are encrypted, but ”just metadata” tells a whole heck of a lot about you: https://kieranhealy.org/blog/archives/2013/06/09/using-metad...
Still not want to jailbreak it because experience is good and I just share some books to the phone app and it get synced to the kindle device
Love tailscale though, perhaps Need buy some full open source ebook reader with tailscale installed
sing-box
Between the two of them, it rules out most the devices I have or what like.
Might be this.
Have one that is managed by a school from 10 years ago and they failed to release the device.
I am a fan of alpine Linux which i think may work well on an old Chromebook.
Any suggestions/links welcome
This means you cannot install the alternate OS setups mentioned in sibling comments.
Throw it away.
ETA: info correct as of a long time ago. I have done no new research.
If you want to boot a Linux distribution, try https://docs.mrchromebox.tech/
The devices page on their wiki shows compatibility with specific devices - https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Devices