Read Epub files in Ubuntu / Debian / Linux mint

What is Epub?

Epub is short for electronic publication. It is a free and open e-book standard by International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF). Epub files have .epub extension. Now, the unique thing about Epub is that the ebook can optimise text for any device display i.e it is adaptive to any screen resolution.The text will try to occupy the free space on the display. Try changing the window size while reading an Epub file and you will notice the difference.

As of now, we don’t have any default application for reading ePUB files for ubuntu/debian. here are some you may install.

1. Fbreader

It a light weight free ebook reader that can open .ePub files. Its cross-platform available for linux, Android, windows , macosx…
It Supports popular ebook formats like ePub, fb2, mobi, rtf, html, plain text, and lot more

Main features:

  • supports several open e-book formats: fb2, html, chm, plucker, palmdoc, ztxt, tcr (psion text), rtf, oeb, openreader, non-DRM’ed mobipocket, plain text, epub, eReader
  • reads directly from tar, zip, gzip, bzip2 archives (you can have several books in one archive) 
  • supports a structured view of your e-book collection 
  • automatically determines encodings 
  • automatically generates a table of contents 
  • keeps the last open book and the last read positions for all open books between runs
  • automatic hyphenation (patterns for several languages are included) 
  • searching and downloading books from www.feedbooks.com and www.litres.ru 
  • partial CSS support for epub files.

How to Install Fbreader in Ubuntu/Linux mint/Debian

open up the terminal (ctrl+alt+t) and type the following command

sudo apt-get install fbreader

For debian you can download the .deb file from their website

after installation open up your dash (windows/super key) and search fbreader or E-book reader. It is installed with the name E-book reader

NOTE: After installing fbreader, you might wanna turn off Auto Hyphenations from
preferences->Styles option, if that is creating problem for you in reading.

2. Calibre

Calibre is a free open source library management application. It manages your e-book collection.

It Supports formats such as: MOBI, LIT, PRC, EPUB, ODT, HTML, CBR, CBZ, RTF,
TXT, PDF and LRS.

It also supports conversion from a dozen different e-book formats to LRF and EPUB.

being cross-platform it supports Linux, Windows, Os x…

install calibre in ubuntu/linux mint by entering the following command in the terminal
sudo apt-get install calibre
install in debian
sudo -v && wget -nv -O- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kovidgoyal/calibre/master/setup/linux-installer.py | sudo python -c "import sys; main=lambda:sys.stderr.write('Download failedn'); exec(sys.stdin.read()); main()"
3. Okular
Okular is a document viewer for KDE desktop. But it can run on any desktop environment. It supports all major file formats including epub and pdf.
How to Install okular on ubuntu:
sudo apt-get install okular
To make Okular support Epub you need to install the following package in ubuntu/linux mint
sudo apt-get install okular-extra-backends
for fedora and other RPM based distros 
yum install okular-extra-backends

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