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I built my own Linux audiobook manager because I could not find anything that handled local audiobook collections the way I wanted.

Most audiobook software focuses on playback.

Mine focuses on managing the whole collection.

This is not just an audiobook player. It is a full audiobook library tool built for people who actually maintain their own files, folders, covers, metadata, series progress, and review tracking.

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What it can do

• Audiobook gallery — browse authors and series visually with cover tiles.
• Metadata editor — edit MP3 tags directly from the app.
• Cover manager — use folder covers, artist covers, sidecar covers, and embedded artwork.
• File renamer — rename tracks cleanly based on metadata.
• Read / watched tracker — track what has already been read or listened to.
• Ownership tracker — see what you own and what is missing from a series.
• Goodreads tracker — track whether Goodreads has been updated.
• Audible review tracker — track whether an Audible review is done.
• Multi-folder library support — scan multiple audiobook folders into one combined gallery.
• Portable tracking — the newer local version can store tracking data inside MP3 files using custom ID3 fields.

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Why I think this is different

There are audiobook players.

There are tag editors.

There are media servers.

There are file renaming tools.

But I wanted one Linux tool that could handle the actual work of managing an audiobook collection:

• Covers
• Metadata
• Clean filenames
• Series progress
• Read status
• Ownership status
• Goodreads status
• Audible review status
• Multiple library folders

That is why I made Audiobook Shelf Manager.

It is not made to be another media player. It is made to be a library-control tool.

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Current status

This is still alpha software.

The GitHub version may not always be as new as the version I currently have installed on my own OS, but the core idea is already working.

For my own use, this is honestly the best audiobook manager I have found — because I had to build it myself.

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Links

Project page:
https://kibasnowpaw.blog/2026/05/16/audiobook-shelf-manager/

GitHub:
https://github.com/kibasnowpaw/AudiobookShelfManager

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If people are interested, check it out, give feedback, star it, open an issue, or just let me know.

If enough people care about it, I may put more time into cleaning it up and pushing the newer version properly.

Winding up with a MBP M1 14 inch with 16 gb ram, 512 GB ssd. Plan to put Linux/Mac dual boot (hopefully)

hi

A couple days with Bazzite. I'm impressed how well it performs. But I don't like how the terminal is restricted. Too early to render judgement in general.

Drove 16 miles on Poconos mountains on private road. Just turned 16!

Yesterday I had my first kernel panic... ever... since I joined Linux. That is like, years. A testament to Debian's reliability. A bad update made the system unstable.

Dungeon Keeper has always been one of my favorite games.

I just installed it again on Linux, this time using KeeperFX, and honestly it runs the way it should. That is always the best feeling with old games. Not just “it launches,” not “it works after five hacks and half the game is broken,” but actually playable.

Dungeon Keeper is still one of those games that feels different from almost anything else. It is not just a strategy game where you build rooms underground. You are managing a living dungeon full of creatures with bad attitudes. You dig out rooms, build your economy, attract monsters, train them, slap imps when they are being useless, defend against heroes, and slowly turn the map into your own evil little kingdom.

What makes it special for me is the personality. The game has that old Bullfrog humor and atmosphere that modern games almost never get right. It is dark, funny, weird, and still has that “evil manager simulator” feeling where half the game is strategy and the other half is just controlled chaos.

I played through the first four levels again and streamed it. It took me almost two hours, which says a lot about the gameplay. Dungeon Keeper is not really a game you rush through if you are actually playing it properly. You build, expand, train, defend, explore, and sometimes just sit there planning what part of the dungeon to improve next.

KeeperFX also adds a lot more than I expected. It is not just a compatibility fix. It has extra missions and improvements too, so this is probably the best way to play Dungeon Keeper today if you still love the original.

My plan is to go through the original campaign again, then maybe move into the extra missions after that. This is one of those games I do not just want installed for nostalgia. I actually want to complete it again.

First 4 levels live stream, about 2 hours:

Preparing to install Modicia O.S. ( Debian based ) bb later with details.

I have a bottle of Gin in my fridge, anyone wants a shot?

Getting there slowly, one game at a time.

This is my little Wine/Lutris shelf right now, and everything you see here works.

Code of Honor 2: Conspiracy Island from disk works.
Conflict: Desert Storm 2 from disk works.
Delta Force: Black Hawk Down from disk works.
Dungeon Keeper Gold from GOG works, and I also installed KeeperFX.
Of Orcs and Men from disk works.
StarCraft from disk works.
StarCraft with cnc-ddraw works.
Epic Games Store works in Wine.
TextAloud 3 works in Wine.
Winamp works in Wine.

I have even live streamed most of them for about an hour each just to prove they are not only launching, but actually playable. The only one I have not streamed this time around is Dungeon Keeper, because I just installed it again, but I do have an old stream from the last time I played it.

It has not all been plug and play. Some of the old games have needed the usual Linux/Wine fighting: DXVK off, MangoHud off, old resolution handling, Wine virtual desktop, sound fixes, old installers, broken online registration junk, dead services, and all the other classic old PC game nonsense. But that is also kind of the fun part for me. I grew up with PC games on disk, and I like getting them running again instead of just letting them sit on a shelf doing nothing.

My plan is to slowly build up a proper old-game setup on Linux with as many of the games I played through the years as I can get working. I also want to install all the physical disk games I still own. If I fall over more old PC games at a price I actually want to pay, I may pick them up too.

I am not trying to make the cleanest or most modern setup. I am trying to rebuild my own old PC gaming history, but running on Linux.

One game at a time.

Old PC game installer tries to speedrun contract law

So I was installing Code of Honor 2 in Wine, and the installer does something I have to laugh at.

On the first setup screen there is an option called:

Express Install

Sounds normal enough, right? Just a quick install option.

But under it, the installer says:

Choosing the “Express install” mode is equivalent to accepting the license.

Click to expand...

And the best part?

It is ticked by default.

So according to this installer, I did not click “I accept the license agreement.” I did not get a proper license screen. I did not actively agree to anything. The installer just put a default tick in a box called “Express Install” and then said, “Congratulations, you agreed.”

That is not consent. That is the installer doing legal parkour.

There is a reason most companies use wording like:

I accept the terms of the license agreement

Click to expand...

or make you press an actual I Agree button.

They do that because it is much cleaner legally. The user can see that they are accepting a license, and the company can later say, “You clicked accept.” It is not hidden inside some default install option that most people would understand as “install this faster.”

If companies could safely get away with “we pre-ticked a setup option, therefore you accepted the contract,” far more of them would do it. They love removing friction when it benefits them.

But this one is just funny.

Express Install: installs the game faster.
Also Express Install: apparently makes me sign a legal agreement by existing near the Next button.

Old PC gaming really had everything:
bad DRM, weird installers, questionable DirectX errors, and now legally ambitious checkboxes.

ola

My first gameplay test had sound problems, because for some reason when I started streaming with OBS, the sound would mess up and just disappear.

So I finally set up my dedicated streaming PC, something I had not gotten around to doing before. That ended up taking about 4 hours, mostly because making a bootable Windows 10 USB from Linux turned into way more pain than it should have been. Ventoy gave me problems, the ISO/USB setup caused issues, and I ended up having to do it the manual way with the Windows ISO, FAT32, and split install files before it would finally boot and install.

But I got Windows 10 installed, got the NVIDIA driver working, got the AVerMedia 4K PCIe capture card working, and got OBS running on the streaming PC.

I also had to clone the screen instead of using passthrough through the capture card. I think that is part of why things got a little messy, or maybe it is because I could only clone the screen properly on X11, at least with the method I know. For some reason X11 also gives me problems with fullscreen in some games. Some games just do not want to behave properly in fullscreen, and that is not something I want to fight with right now.

So for now I am just playing in windowed mode and letting the streaming PC handle OBS. It was annoying to set up, but it works.

Old multi-disc Windows games in Wine can still be a pain.

I was installing Conflict: Desert Storm II through Lutris/Wine from the original physical CDs. Disc 1 installed fine, but when the installer asked for Disc 2, Wine seemed to keep the optical drive busy. Because of that, Linux could not properly unmount/remount the drive in a way the installer would accept.

The system could see Disc 2, but the installer still refused to continue. The mount path also got messy, where it still looked like the old Disc 1 mount even though the label showed Disc 2.

Instead of fighting Wine and the physical CD drive, I worked around it by making an ISO of Disc 2 and mounting that manually. That way Wine could keep using what it thought was the same CD drive, but the content was actually Disc 2.

Basically:

1. Install from Disc 1.
2. When the installer asks for Disc 2, create/mount a Disc 2 ISO.
3. Point Wine/Lutris at the mounted ISO path.
4. Continue the installer.

It is one of those classic Linux/Wine moments where the game itself is not really the problem — the old installer and disc swapping are.

Still, I got around it. Physical old PC games can be annoying under Wine, but with Lutris, ISO mounting, and a bit of manual work, they can still be made to run.

Running old programs through Lutris is honestly one of the reasons I still keep messing with Linux.
Some of my older programs still work fine, but only if I go back far enough in Wine.

That’s also why I’m using Wine 8 in Lutris for some of them.
A lot of the newer Wine setups moving over to WOW64 is not something I’m a fan of at all. I hate WOW64. For newer stuff it may be fine, but for old programs that already barely work, it just becomes one more thing that can break them.

So yeah, while others move forward, I’m over here dragging myself back to Wine 8 just to keep my old programs alive and running the way I want.

At the moment I’ve got stuff like TextAloud 3, Winamp, Epic Games Store, and Of Orcs and Men sitting in Lutris, and honestly it feels a bit stupid and a bit beautiful at the same time.
If it works, it works.

Sometimes Linux is not about using the newest thing.
Sometimes it’s about finding the one old setup that still does the job and refusing to let it die.

this is why i use a phone as a camera

When i was on vacation in my own contra i fall over Of Orcs and Men on original Disk never been a fan of games like this really but i don't mind try new kind of games so i installed it on wine and it worked.

I haven't forgotten about the full write up I'm planning on writing of the fresh installation of MX Linux 25. The screenshot's of Modicia O.S....still not installed. USB is ready to go tho:-
My flat is in a complete state of disarray: contractors are coming soon.

I'm a holder of two undergraduate degrees,former VP of my college fraternity.

Taking a break before the chaos/mess begins. LOL!