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Hi all,

I recently posted a video showing an audiobook editing and tracking application I built myself using Python + Flask. A lot of people ask why I went through the trouble instead of just using Audible, Goodreads, or existing apps, so I want to explain the reasoning.

First yes, I do use Audible.

But I don’t treat it as my main ecosystem. I buy audiobooks there, then convert them for personal use. This does involve removing DRM, which is technically against their guidelines. I understand that. But my reasoning is simple:

I paid for the audiobooks.

I don’t subscribe for the “free with subscription” titles I only convert books I actually purchased. My goal is not piracy or redistribution. I just want to listen to the content I legally own on whatever device or software I choose instead of being locked into a single platform.

Platform lock-in has always been something I dislike, especially as a Linux user. I prefer ownership and flexibility over controlled ecosystems.

Once you move audiobooks into your own local library, another problem appears:

There is no good system for managing large self-hosted audiobook collections.

Audible manages purchases but not true ownership workflows.
Goodreads tracks reading but is not a media manager.
Media servers like Jellyfin, Plex, and Kodi can read metadata but are not designed for deep editing or personal tracking.

So I built my own tool.

The application:

• Edits audiobook metadata cleanly
• Adds cover art
• Tracks what I’ve read vs not read
• Shows author and series overview
• Keeps my reviews connected to the files
• Supports Jellyfin, Plex, and Kodi metadata structures
• Runs locally on Linux using Python + Flask

The idea was to create a personal “RPG-style” library overview where I actually understand my collection instead of losing track of hundreds of titles.

This project came from a simple need:

After conversion, I needed a workflow that gives me control over my own library without depending on any external service.

Curious if others here manage audiobooks locally and how you handle metadata and tracking.

i made this song as fun about gaming on Linux and now we just need anti-cheat to follow

I've just published a huge blogpost about living with schizophrenia and the origin of the nickname: tinfoil-hat

Studying Trigonometry.
Amazing for drafting and blueprints. Anyone good with trig?

Chitubox got rid of Linux support and now I am pissed

I honestly don’t understand why more people on Linux don’t use TTS.

I rely on text-to-speech all the time, especially to review my own writing before posting anything. It helps me catch tone issues, awkward phrasing, and things spell-checkers won’t. It’s one of the reasons I can stand behind what I post.

Since native Linux TTS tools never quite fit my needs, I just solved it myself. I run TextAloud through Wine, gave it its own dedicated Wine prefix, added a proper icon, registered it in the application menu, and pinned it to my toolbar like any other program. From a usability standpoint, it behaves just like a native app.

One small tweak was needed for audio stability: I set PULSE_LATENCY_MSEC=150, otherwise I’d get occasional audio popping. After that, it’s been rock solid.

It’s fast, reliable, and fits perfectly into my workflow. For me, TTS isn’t an accessibility extra it’s a productivity and quality-control tool. Once you get used to hearing your own text read back to you, it’s hard to go without it.

I think my boyfriend is dumb

I’d better go back and start editing some of the hundreds of gameplay videos I have lying around and begin releasing them. I may not game as much this year I’m not sure yet. It really depends on a lot of things, and there’s so much going on lately that I don’t really feel like I have the time or the money.

I’ll be releasing a good portion of DOOM Eternal, though not all of it, since I haven’t finished editing the entire game yet. There will also be parts from other games released in between while I work on the remaining edits.

Here is DOOM Eternal – Part 3, played on a GTX 1080.

I want to be clear about why I’ve stopped using and supporting Patreon.

I used Patreon for what it was originally meant for: supporting developers and creators I liked. That part was never a problem. The problem started the moment I was shown a popup telling me that because my profile is marked 18+, I now have to verify my identity using a photo or government-issued photo ID (passport, etc.).

At that point, my decision was immediate.

I chose to delete my Patreon account entirely and block Patreon at the network level. Not temporarily. Not “until they change it.” Permanently.

People will say “they have to follow the law.” That may be true but that has absolutely nothing to do with me. Laws that apply to a company do not obligate me to keep using their service. I’m not required to accept new risks just because a platform decided to change its rules.

I will never use or support any site that demands photo ID or identity documents as a condition for participation. The moment a service crosses that line, I’m out. No debate, no negotiation, no exceptions.

Once you hand over identity documents, you lose control. You don’t control how long they’re stored, who can access them, or what happens when there’s a breach and there will eventually be breaches. When that happens, the consequences are carried by the user, not the platform.

This isn’t about hiding anything. It’s about basic security boundaries.

Blocking Patreon at the router level isn’t a protest or a stunt it’s simply enforcing my own standards. If a service no longer aligns with them, it doesn’t exist on my network.

What other people choose to do is their business. If you’re fine with it, that’s your call. I’m not here to convince anyone.

This is my stance:
The moment a platform asks for photo ID, I leave and it gets blocked.

Simple as that.

Took me a long time to get TTS to work in wine i had wine 11 wish is wow64 and this only works in 32bit so i had to install wine 10 to make a wine32 folder and the main problem is wine SAPI5 is difference from windows SAPI5 so you need to copy the windows SAPI5 into wine or do what i did i had to use an really really old post to found out what i was looking for you can fine it here

now i just need to find a way to make installed exe voice to work so i can use good voice instead of windows voices if that even possible.

I think I am almost there. At this point, I genuinely believe I can stay on Linux long-term. I have even switched my main PC to Ubuntu Server 25.10, running XFCE on X11 as my desktop environment.

Most games work without major issues, as long as they do not rely on Windows kernel-level drivers, which many modern anti-cheat systems unfortunately require. My workflow is slightly unconventional: instead of using Proton through native Steam, I primarily run Steam inside Wine and then launch games directly through Wine itself. This is something I have always done, and it still works well for the majority of titles.

There are, however, a few exceptions. Games such as GreedFall and Horizon Zero Dawn have issues related to color depth and full-range color output when running under Wine. At present, there is no functional fix for this in Wine, and if there were, I would have found it. In these cases, I use native Steam with Proton, sometimes combined with specific launch commands, as in the case of GreedFall, where forcing full color range resolves the problem. These are the only titles that currently require Proton for proper visual output.

For video editing, I use Kdenlive. While I prefer PowerDirector, it is effectively unusable under Wine due to serious instability and rendering problems, particularly during encoding and conversion. Given the difficulty of achieving reliable results, I chose not to invest time into making it work and instead adapted my workflow around Kdenlive, which runs natively and reliably on Linux.

For media management, I use TinyMediaManager, which I strongly prefer over Media Companion. Although TinyMediaManager has a free tier with limitations, I chose to purchase it because I value the software and its capabilities. It is roughly twice the price of FileBot, but it also offers significantly more functionality. I intentionally avoid FileBot primarily because it transitioned from a free model to a paid and subscription-based system. I have a strong dislike for software that adopts subscription pricing after being free, which is also the main reason I no longer use Adobe products. What once was a one-time purchase has become an indefinite recurring expense, which I fundamentally disagree with.

I also ended up abandoning Plex entirely. My current setup directly connects my router, firewall, Pi-hole, and Plex server to my TV. Even when playing media locally on the same machine, forcing direct play and disabling transcoding, Plex would still initiate video transcoding without any notification. The only reason I discovered this was through its transcoding logs. As a result, I replaced Plex with Kodi. Since I only consume media within my home and never remotely, Kodi is a far more logical solution. Additionally, Kodi’s Trakt.tv integration is significantly better than Plex’s. It allows episode-by-episode rating, which Plex lacks. As a result, I previously only rated full series as a whole. Now I can rate individual episodes easily, which fits my viewing habits far better.

At this stage, the final missing piece in my Linux transition is finding a reliable Audible downloader and converter that works natively on Linux. Alternatively, I may attempt to make my existing solution function under Wine, although encoding and conversion processes tend to be unreliable in Wine based on my past experience.

One final observation: every time I use Windows, my Pi-hole logs show a dramatic increase in blocked requests. Recently, the two most aggressive sources of blocked traffic were Windows itself (now replaced by Ubuntu) with 8,074 blocked queries, followed by my iPhone 13 with 4,685 blocked requests. The contrast between Windows and Linux in this regard is stark and reinforces my decision to move away from Windows entirely.

Hi

Welcome to Linux.org, Heidi.

Happy Birthday, Claire, from a wizard born at the RBH in Brisbane in 1957 but later in the year

Thinking on installing Spiral Linux.

Trying to stay warm.

Hubris strikes again. Added a new nic to my firewall and pushed traffic onto it. Thought 5 minutes work. Well thank God for a backup. An hour of down time and three hours work. Genius....

I'm looking on here as a newby , for a small linux distro that will be easy and painless to put on my Lenovo chrome book, from 2020 it not supported any more allso developer. One doesn't respond when multiple taping the three top row keys at same time ( pwr- refresh- esc ) I have to do it in the settings after I put it there the cmd line pops up what magic script can someone give me to pute in. The model # is 100e GEN3 64gb of space & 4gb RAM the box so the distro execute itself onto the laptop . So I hope ive provided enouph and if mint is not the OS of choice bc of it haveing issues then something with the same footprint very small is what I'm trying to get thank you to who ever sends me a message

Hi guys, I need help. I could not find any way to solve it. I have trouble with setting up. I am using a Casper Nirvana (i7 3 with 1TB hard drive and 16GB RAM) and I wrote many distributions to many USBs, but the Casper didn't see the USB in BIOS. I cannot find any way to solve it, and I also tried to update my BIOS with USB, but it didn't see the USB again. What should I do? btw i try to setup mint,xubuntu,lite,Debian and fedora

Gathering pic's and information for the new Linux article I'm preparing to write.