im thinking of getting an ereader, but cant find many foss devices. i dont plan on connecting it to the internet, so i suppose it doesnt matter if its controlled by amazon right? love to hear your thoughts…
All in all I would recommend to stay away from devices made by ebook vendors (Kindle and Kobo most notably). They tend to force their shops and limit interoperability.
Kobo devices are the way to go. Easy sideloading, multiple FOSS operating system alternatives, and generally they’ve got some nice n’ cheap options.
What do you mean with OS alternatives?
I am using my normal Android Phone with Librera Reader, it works great.
I use Kobo Forma with a 8" screen. Has physical buttons. Perfect for books and manga. Never connected it to the internet.
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Kindle devices are nice but not at all FOSS, and not very open either. Although you can sideload books, EPUB files are still not directly supported, you have to convert them. Converting is easy with Calibre but it’s still a hassle that is not needed on any other ereader.
There’s a vibrant jailbreak community on MobileRead, however Amazon keeps blocking jailbreaks.
After my Kindle died I got a Kobo instead. Costs about the same as Kindle (maybe slightly more?). Still not fully open, but supports EPUB and its MobileRead community is just as vibrant (and Kobo doesn’t block you from doing this).
That table doesn’t contain any info on FOSS compatibility.
You can hack pretty much any e-reader and upload a foss OS
Really? I’ve only managed to find a way to hack kobo readers.
Google it, but if you’ve got ebooks on a hard drive somewhere, you can easily transfer them to a kindle, no further purchases required.
Sideloading ebooks is not the same thing as running alternative FOSS software on a device.
Where there’s a will, there’s a way. I don’t have the will to find out how to upload an alt OS to a kindle, but the Internet is vast and if ye seek, ye shall find.
I did look into it and I’ve yet to find a way to do this.
The FOSS community is not limitless and while some community might develop a way in the future, it most definetly is not trivial to do, just by googling. This is a niche topic and AFAIK quite hard to do (first getting custom firmware to run and then develop a FOSS OS for it… While probably not being paid to do so).
Your comments seem quite condescending. I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt but I’d kindly advice you to adjust your tone a bit.
Couldn’t you just use an android tablet?
