Kindle Books on Linux

As of recently it is possible to run Kindle for PC application via Wine on Linux. I tested it on 64-bit install of Ubuntu 10.10 and put together this step-by-step instructions and a short review. Enjoy!

You will need to install Wine Windows Emulator 1.3.* or higher. Unfortunately, at the time of writing this version is still in the unstable branch and can’t be installed through default Ubuntu software repositories.  Fortunately, installing the “unstable” branch is quite easy and it is not that unstable. Just type this command in your terminal window and it will all happen automatically. You will only need to accept the EULA for true-type fonts.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-wine/ppa && sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install wine1.3

Navigate to “Kindle for PC” page in your favorite browser and download the installer.Start the installer via Wine either by right-clicking on the downloaded file or by changing the folder to downloads in the terminal and typing

wine ./KindleForPC-installer.exe

The app will install and prompt for registration just like it does on Windows.You can now enjoy your Kindle books on your Linux machine ;)

Overall the app runs and works nicely but with minor quirks. Books download, you can read books, highlight passages and annotate. I couldn’t get dictionary lookup to work. On one of the two machines that I’ve tested the application refused to download dictionary claiming that it is not in my archived items and on the other it froze the entire virtual machine when it attempted the download (could have been a VM issue). But aside from this quirk you can totally read Kindle books on your Linux box. You can also use Google and Wikipedia for definition lookup.

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