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Mea Vota
Mea Vota
Participant
December 3, 2014
Question

Help, can't buy (read) ebooks with DRM anymore because ADE 1.7 quit working and newer versions don't work under Wine (Linux)?

  • December 3, 2014
  • 2 replies
  • 722 views

I really hope somebody can help! I've been struggling with this issue for months now, and I finally end up here asking for help...

Problem: I have a Linux system (Suse) and I'm very happy with it, except for one thing: ADE quit working on Linux (under Wine). Well, version 1.7 worked just fine but Adobe decided that it should be updated, so now every time I start ADE, it says it has an update and asks if I want to update, or if I want to do this later and thus for now quit the application.

Downloading and installing a newer version is, unfortunately, not possible since more recent versions are not working under Wine! At least, this is my experience and also what I read online everywhere. I tried versions 2 & 3 & 4, none is working. This is what I get to see: "Adobe Digital Editions (version) requires Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 / 4.0 (depending on version) Service Pack 1. Please install and try again." Of course, I can't download a service pack for Windows on my Linux system.

So, the problem now is that I can't buy (well, read) ebooks. Of course, an epub is no problem (this can be opened in Calibre, which works like a charm), but the drmmed .acsm files can't be opened by anything else than by ADE. And, many times, there simply is no option for a certain book to buy it DRM-free!

Somebody who can help? Somebody who know more about this? And, Adobe, why not make it work under Linux distributions, at least with Wine?

Thanks for reading and I love to hear your tips!

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    2 replies

    Paraplegic Racehorse
    Paraplegic Racehorse
    Participant
    January 27, 2017

    Just a note: you can install the .net stuff into your WINEPREFIX with winetricks.

    It still won't work, but you can do it.

    Personally, I think Adobe should just release an API so everyone can hook into the content network and authenticate and download DRM-encumbered digital products. Then they wouldn't need to keep developing this lame-duck reader program which most people use ONLY for accessing the content network. If Adobe really and truly feel the [awful, horrible, unmanageable] ADE experience is the best available [every tried Calibre? So much nicer.] then they should either actively develop it and make it work everywhere, including Linux, or release the source so other people can.

    Mea Vota
    Mea VotaAuthor
    Participant
    December 5, 2014

    Nobody answered until now, so I'll give an update myself:

    My current solution is to STOP BUYING DRM-med epub books (=.acsm) because you ONLY need Adobe Digital Editions for these files (for others you could use Calibre, which works great). If there are no unprotected books available for sale, then I buy them at Amazon. The Kindle application reader works fine under Linux (via Wine) and I use Epubor (not free, but it really works very nice and for me is worth the money) to get rid of the protection and to have it freely available in Calibre and to be able to put it nicely on my eraeder (Kobo Aura).

    I have to say that it annoys me ENORMOUSLY that Adobe doesn't come up with a good solution for Linux-users.

    To completely turn my back on epub .acsm files that needs to be opened with ADE first, is -at this moment- for me the best solution. (I tried Virtual Box this evening, but with no success yet, when I want to create a VM, it keeps coming with "This parameter must be a string or Unicode object" I'm a bit tired of trying things to get something to work so I didn't put much effort in this to solve it, yet. If somebody knows how this problem can be solved, I would like  to hear it.)

    circlestrafe
    circlestrafe
    Participant
    December 6, 2014

    They can't even get half the stuff working on Windows, why would they waste time working on solutions for 0.5% of their customer base when 99.5% use a dominate OS?  It's Linux, surely you can work up a hack to fix it, isn't that why you're using it instead of Windows? 

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