What is a small .EPUB reader that is easy to install for my small Puppy remaster?

My question is basically the title. I'm making my own Puppy Linux remaster and it already has a .PDF reader for it that is very small. I think it's called Evince? It has a native GTK UI and starts in a second, uses very little RAM and CPU. Now I need a .EPUB reader. I've seen a couple different .EPUB reader apps out there for different distros, and they all the .EPUB readers seem to fall into a couple categories:

  • humongous JS monstrosity that runs inside a web browser OR packages an entire chrome copy into it with a bloated dependency hell

  • something else that is humongous and has dependency hell but non secretly a massive web app inside a web browser under the hood.

So is there some third option that's small and light and easy to install like the normal .PDF reader? I'm just asking because I honestly didn't find one that fit the bill.

53 points · 11 comments · view on lemmy.world

11 Comments

everett@lemmy.ml · 18 pts · 2y (1 reply)

You're going to have a web browser installed, right? .epub files are just zips with HTML/images/CSS inside. Just find the HTML file with named "toc" and go from there.

Pantherina@feddit.de · 7 pts · 2y

I.e. install a Browser extension that does this

beerclue@lemmy.world · 15 pts · 2y (1 reply)

As far as I know, MuPDF is not that heavy, and can view both PDFs and EPUBs (and others).

I personally use zathura, which is a very, very light weight document viewer, has vi style key bindings, and has plugins for viewing PDF, EPUB, CB, and others. Works pretty well in a keyboard centric desktop environment (I use Hyprland).

muhyb@programming.dev · 3 pts · 2y

+1 for Zathura.

ardent_abysm@lemm.ee · 8 pts · 2y

Assuming you have a Firefox derived browser installed, you could just add an EPUB extension to the browser.

HubertManne@kbin.social · 3 pts · 2y

puppy is really an underappreciated distro.

LemonLord@endlesstalk.org · 3 pts · 2y

Take Emacs. Then you have everything. 😎

mesamunefire@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 2y (1 reply)

There's a couple of command lines e-reader apps you may want to try.

Vilian@lemmy.ca · 4 pts · 2y

less 😎

jennraeross@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 2y

Epy reader is command line, so not very discoverable, but I freaking love it

bismuthbob@sopuli.xyz · 1 pts · 2y

One option is to convert to txt for any text-only epubs that you have. There are a ton of lightweight options if you're willing to use format-shifted copies on your computer.