i'm looking for a reader for pdf's and other media
are there any running debian or other linux based distributions

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On Wednesday, July 2nd, 2025 at 5:47 PM, fxkl47BF@protonmail.com <fxkl47BF@protonmail.com> wrote:

i'm looking for a reader for pdf's and other media
are there any running debian or other linux based distributions

Firefox, Protonmail, and the toys that come with debian's XFCE GUI install have been quite flexible and reliable on my boxes for several years.

--
Glenn English

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On Thu, Jul 03, 2025 at 08:25:27AM +0500, Alexander V. Makartsev wrote:

On 03.07.2025 04:47, fxkl47BF@protonmail.com wrote:

i'm looking for a reader for pdf's and other media
are there any running debian or other linux based distributions

"okular", "evince", "viewnior" to name a few.

And xpdf.

apt search "pdf.*reader"

yields (among a few false positives) a few possible hits I never heard
of.

Cheers
--
t

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If thou art interested in minimalism, then go with 'Zathura'.

On July 2, 2025 11:47:18 PM UTC, fxkl47BF@protonmail.com wrote:

i'm looking for a reader for pdf's and other media
are there any running debian or other linux based distributions

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On Thu, Jul 03, 2025 at 05:29:56AM +0000, Alif Radhitya wrote:

If thou art interested in minimalism, then go with 'Zathura'.

Hmmm.

tomas@caliban:~$ apt show zathura xpdf
Package: zathura
[...]
Installed-Size: 723 kB
Provides: zathura-abi-5
Depends: zathura-pdf-poppler, libc6 (>= 2.34), libcairo2 (>= 1.14.0), libgirara-gtk3-3 (>= 0.3.7), libglib2.0-0 (>= 2.50), libgtk-3-0 (>= 3.22), libmagic1 (>= 5.12), libpango-1.0-0 (>= 1.14.0), libseccomp2 (>= 0.0.0~20120605), libsqlite3-0 (>= 3.6.23),
libsynctex2 (>= 2022.20220321.62855)
[...]

Package: xpdf
[...]
Installed-Size: 372 kB
Provides: pdf-viewer
Depends: libc6 (>= 2.34), libgcc-s1 (>= 3.0), libpaper1, libpoppler126 (>= 22.12.0), libstdc++6 (>= 11), libx11-6, libxm4 (>= 2.3.4), libxt6
[...]

Cheers
--
tomás

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On Thu, Jul 03, 2025 at 01:47:18AM CEST, fxkl47BF@protonmail.com said:

i'm looking for a reader for pdf's and other media
are there any running debian or other linux based distributions

By "reader" do you mean a software running on a standard debian computer, or a hardware specialized for
reading documents, that you'd like to be running a debian based system ?


--
Erwan David

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Alexander V. Makartsev <avbetev@gmail.com> wrote:

[-- text/plain, encoding 7bit, charset: UTF-8, 16 lines --]

On 03.07.2025 04:47, fxkl47BF@protonmail.com wrote:

i'm looking for a reader for pdf's and other media
are there any running debian or other linux based distributions

"okular", "evince", "viewnior" to name a few.
Okular has many dependencies on KDE, so if your system uses other
Desktop Environment, Xfce for an example, it is better to go for Evince
and Viewnior.

On my Debian system I have evince and atril, atril is the default PDF
reader but occasionally I find that evince works better.

--
Chris Green
·

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On Thu, Jul 03, 2025 at 12:08:27PM +0500, Alexander V. Makartsev wrote:

[...]

I've re-read original poster's message and now I think we all
mis-interpreted their request.
I think they asked for a suggestion about hardware, like a tablet computer, or a handheld book reader capable of viewing PDFs and other media formats,

Quite possible, yes.

Cheers
--
tomás

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On Thu, 3 Jul 2025, tomas@tuxteam.de wrote:

On Thu, Jul 03, 2025 at 12:08:27PM +0500, Alexander V. Makartsev wrote:

[...]

I've re-read original poster's message and now I think we all
mis-interpreted their request.
I think they asked for a suggestion about hardware, like a tablet computer, >> or a handheld book reader capable of viewing PDFs and other media formats,

Quite possible, yes.

it sounded very clear when i said it in my head :)
is there no dedicated reader device that can run a linux distro

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On 3/7/25 15:08, Alexander V. Makartsev wrote:

On 03.07.2025 09:35, tomas@tuxteam.de wrote:

On Thu, Jul 03, 2025 at 08:25:27AM +0500, Alexander V. Makartsev wrote:

On 03.07.2025 04:47,fxkl47BF@protonmail.com wrote:

i'm looking for a reader for pdf's and other media
are there any running debian or other linux based distributions

"okular", "evince", "viewnior" to name a few.

And xpdf.

apt search "pdf.*reader"

yields (among a few false positives) a few possible hits I never heard
of.

Cheers

I've re-read original poster's message and now I think we all
mis-interpreted their request.
I think they asked for a suggestion about hardware, like a tablet
computer, or a handheld book reader capable of viewing PDFs and other
media formats, with Debian or another Linux distro under the hood.
Probably these devices originally will run on Android or on some
proprietary OS with locked bootloader and encrypted firmware, so the end
user couldn't fight planned obsolescence.
Speaking from my little experience, making custom firmware will be
incredibly difficult, also according to: https://wiki.debian.org/Mobile

--

With kindest regards, Alexander.

Debian - The universal operating system
https://www.debian.org

Yes, I quite agree with the last post above; in reading the Subject
field of the thread, and, the text cited above, from the original
device, the original poster appears to be seeking something like a
kindle device - note - device, not software application - that will run
the Debian operating system -"readers running debian" - not "PDF viewers running on Debian".

And,
"

i'm looking for a reader for pdf's and other media
are there any running debian or other linux based distributions

"


"
"So once you do know what the question actually is,
you'll know what the answer means."
- Deep Thought,
Chapter 28 of Book 1 of
"The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:
A Trilogy In Four Parts",
written by Douglas Adams,
published by Pan Books, 1992
"


..
Bret Busby
Armadale
West Australia
(UTC+0800)
..............

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On 3/7/25 17:10, Bret Busby wrote:

On 3/7/25 15:08, Alexander V. Makartsev wrote:

On 03.07.2025 09:35, tomas@tuxteam.de wrote:

On Thu, Jul 03, 2025 at 08:25:27AM +0500, Alexander V. Makartsev wrote: >>>> On 03.07.2025 04:47,fxkl47BF@protonmail.com  wrote:

i'm looking for a reader for pdf's and other media
are there any running debian or other linux based distributions

"okular", "evince", "viewnior" to name a few.

And xpdf.

   apt search "pdf.*reader"

yields (among a few false positives) a few possible hits I never heard
of.

Cheers

I've re-read original poster's message and now I think we all
mis-interpreted their request.
I think they asked for a suggestion about hardware, like a tablet
computer, or a handheld book reader capable of viewing PDFs and other
media formats, with Debian or another Linux distro under the hood.
Probably these devices originally will run on Android or on some
proprietary OS with locked bootloader and encrypted firmware, so the
end user couldn't fight planned obsolescence.
Speaking from my little experience, making custom firmware will be
incredibly difficult, also according to: https://wiki.debian.org/Mobile

--

  With kindest regards, Alexander.

  Debian - The universal operating system
  https://www.debian.org

Yes, I quite agree with the last post above; in reading the Subject
field of the thread, and, the text cited above, from the original
device, the original poster appears to be seeking something like a
kindle device - note - device, not software application - that will run
the Debian operating system -"readers running debian" - not "PDF viewers running on Debian".

And,
"

i'm looking for a reader for pdf's and other media
are there any running debian or other linux based distributions

"

"
"So once you do know what the question actually is,
 you'll know what the answer means."
- Deep Thought,
  Chapter 28 of Book 1 of
  "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:
  A Trilogy In Four Parts",
  written by Douglas Adams,
  published by Pan Books, 1992
"

I believe that the problem is in the nature of ICT users' mailing lists
- the need to balance tolerance of varying levels of competency in the
English language, with often bad grammar, and thence, wrongly expressed descriptions ("I have Debian <version> running on <software application name>"), with the need for accuracy, including, especially, of problem descriptions.

Computers and software, including operating systems, are pedantic (other
than AI, which produces too much garbage); humans are notsomuch, and,
often lax in communication skills.

So, many misinterpretations and misconstructions occur, needing accuracy
in communications, to try to minimise wrongful outcomes.

Otherwise, things can occur, like I observed, many years ago in a UNIX
class, where a student entered the command
chmod .
.

The consequences were not what was wanted.

..
Bret Busby
Armadale
West Australia
(UTC+0800)
..............

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not to forget (most?) Pocketbook> https://pocketbook.de/e-reader?gad_campaignid=22496675669

devices! I myself chose InkPad 3 and am fine with it. But: I didn't
find out how to work with the running linux. I only use it reading
books, pdf and so on.

didier gaumet:

Le 03/07/2025 à 13:25, fxkl47BF@protonmail.com a écrit :
[...]

is there no dedicated reader device that can run a linux distro

Hello,

A minimal search on the web for "linux on <somedevice>" leads to:
- for Kindle devices:
https://github.com/schuhumi/alpine_kindle
- for Kobo devices https://tuxphones.com/kobo-clara-e-book-ereader-linux-kernel-hack/

I am sure there are others, I just stop searching after these results

Buf if, by "dedicated", you mean an e-book reader device running a GNU/
Linux distro out of the box, I am not aware of any.
If the specs are more brad you may consider an android smartphone/tablet
is a device running a Linux distro, you just have to install Calibre
reader app, for instance...

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not to forget (most?) Pocketbook> https://pocketbook.de/e-reader?gad_campaignid=22496675669

devices! I myself chose InkPad 3 and am fine with it. But: I didn't find
out how to work with the running linux. I only use it reading books, pdf
and so on.

I can't find very definitive answer about the OS they're running.
The seem to be using a Linux kernel, just like all the Android devices,
but beyond that it's not clear what's running on it. It doesn't seem
closer to Debian than your regular Android device.

I vaguely remember someone posting a hack to install something like
Debian on a "ReMarkable" tablet (a search for "installing debian on
a remarkable tablet" might get you somewhere), but IIRC it was very much
"proof of concept" rather than something usable.

Of course, you can also take a regular Android device and install
a normal GNU/Linux distro on it. The success depends mostly on how
well that tablet's hardware is supported by the vanilla Linux kernel.

There are some tablets sold directly with some GNU/Linux support, but
they're rare. I know of:

- [PineNote](https://pine64.org/devices/pinenote/).

- [Librem 11](https://puri.sm/products/librem-11/).
It's closer to a laptop than to an e-book reader, tho.

- [Framework 12](https://frame.work/ca/en/laptop12).
This one is a laptop, but can be used as a tablet.

Both come from companies whose ethics seem a lot better aligned with
Free Software than your regular tech company, so buying their products encourages further development in a more friendly direction.


Stefan

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On Thu, 3 Jul 2025, Stefan Monnier wrote:

not to forget (most?) Pocketbook>
https://pocketbook.de/e-reader?gad_campaignid=22496675669

devices! I myself chose InkPad 3 and am fine with it. But: I didn't find
out how to work with the running linux. I only use it reading books, pdf
and so on.

I can't find very definitive answer about the OS they're running.
The seem to be using a Linux kernel, just like all the Android devices,
but beyond that it's not clear what's running on it. It doesn't seem
closer to Debian than your regular Android device.

I vaguely remember someone posting a hack to install something like
Debian on a "ReMarkable" tablet (a search for "installing debian on
a remarkable tablet" might get you somewhere), but IIRC it was very much "proof of concept" rather than something usable.

Of course, you can also take a regular Android device and install
a normal GNU/Linux distro on it. The success depends mostly on how
well that tablet's hardware is supported by the vanilla Linux kernel.

There are some tablets sold directly with some GNU/Linux support, but
they're rare. I know of:

- [PineNote](https://pine64.org/devices/pinenote/).

- [Librem 11](https://puri.sm/products/librem-11/).
It's closer to a laptop than to an e-book reader, tho.

- [Framework 12](https://frame.work/ca/en/laptop12).
This one is a laptop, but can be used as a tablet.

Both come from companies whose ethics seem a lot better aligned with
Free Software than your regular tech company, so buying their products encourages further development in a more friendly direction.

the pinenote looks interesting though a bit pricey
the docs say there is a debian firmware available

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There is also the Pine Tab or the Pine Note (e-ink) from Pine64 if they're in stock. I don't know what distro they run though. I think they are both just tablets, but the Pine Note has an e-ink display if that's what you're looking for.
--
this is my clever sig.

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