This may be a dumb question but isn’t OTA TV still basically exactly what you describe?

CWA largely removes the need for running Calibre.

I use CWA for the main book “hub” and upload everything (audiobooks and comics too) to it. Then I have audiobookshelf scan the calibre directory, and Komga do the same because the app I use for comics (cdisplayex) doesn’t sync with Koreader yet.

On the client side I use Koreader, Lissen and Cdisplayex.

It works fine but it would be nice to have one app that syncs all progress. And my holy grail is one that can sync ebook and audiobook progress like Amazon’s whispersync!

No Photogimp is not enough lol

Honestly? I would probably pay for a GIMP clone that has a photoshop-like UI and can be installed via flatpak. $70 is a little high but if it was $20 and received regular updates?

what is it

Komga maybe? It’s made for comics/manga but they can be grouped.

Booklore was discovered to be vibe-coded and riddled with security issues. The dev shut down the project when discovered. Best avoided for now.

KOReader is not “fake epaper”, it’s an app designed to be used on ereaders which means it’s UI is high contrast. FWIW I agree it’s not ideal for an OLED phone screen, but it’s definitely not fake epaper (more like the opposite) and makes me think you might be accidentally using something else?

(Also KOReader is not for “certain” devices, it’s FOSS and installs on basically any ereader, including Kindle, Kobo and anything running android like Boox).

What CWA does is it integrates a KOreader sync server (can also be ran independently). In future updates CWA’s web reader will sync with this progress, but for now it only shows up in the UI like this:

THAT ALL SAID, if you are only using the WebUI and don’t want to wait for CWA to update their web reader, Komga is a simple app (originally designed for Manga but will work fine with books) that has a web reader that will also remember your progress (and fwiw there is a KOReader plugin in case you want to sync that progress with an epaper device in the future).

It was the UI he didn’t like so it’s not going to be much different.

Yunohost seems the community pick these days. I also played around with CasaOS and found it very user friendly. Though development on that one seems to have stalled.

This is cool, so I could theoretically just set up a Plex/Jellyfin library and not need a youtube account?

Since I first learned about Linux I have never envisioned a future where Linux didn’t eventually take over essentially all operating system spaces and I still don’t. The question is how long will it take to get there.

But as others have said, I think the overall decline of desktop PC use combined with the just pure overall quality of Linux compared to Mac and Windows PCs in 2026 implies that the x86 PC space will become majority Linux within the next 10 years if not less.

Libelec (kodi) is fine if only playing local media but its use for anything else except realdebrid is extremely lacking. On the plus side it will run great on an Rpi5 and if you go that route you can probably even use your TV remote because Libelec has excellent CEC support.

Jellyfin/Plex is something your TV also probably has an app for, so you wouldn’t even need a media center, just a media server.

Plasma Bigscreen is making slow gains, but in a couple of years will probably be the definitive Linux media center PC.

Also a bit unconventional, but Bazzite can load directly into Steam’s big picture mode. From there you could set shortcuts for Jellyfin or Plex HTPC.

They seem to be working on uh, syncing all the sync features. There have been some updates recently.

My understanding is that it wasn’t so much his “choice in tools” it was privacy concerns surrounding that choice.

I think CWA is the one to watch. It’s progress has been slower but steady.

Crazy. It had a meteoric rise.

I guess CWA is the one to use now. In a way I’m glad the space will have only a single major player.

What you’re looking for is called an “Alternative frontend”. I’m not aware of a working one for Facebook but it might be worth searching around!

Damn 99% of the time someone says not to use an open source product it’s because of some obscure drama unrelated to the actual program.

But in this case the dev appears to not just be using AI code (not great but debatable) but using mostly AI code and using AI to reply to bug reports. Not something the average person wants to be running in a live environment.

I haven’t used Booklore but the excitement around it was nudging me there. I think I’ll stick with CWAs slower rollout.

That’s not a reason to consider CWA unsafe