Kindle for PC via Wine
I really want to get the Kindle PC program running on my computer so I can download, read, and manage my e-books. I realize that Calibre can be used to manage e-books and I do have that downloaded. However, Amazon won't let me download ebooks unless my PC is registered in their Kindle program and I'd like to just keep things streamlined.
I've viewed many tutorials and advice for setting it up. I have Wine, I have Kindle for PC, I set it to Win98, all of that. However, when I try to open KindlePC from the Wine menu or from the desktop icon, nothing happens. No error messages, nothing. I don't know what might be wrong. How can I make it work?
413 Answers
Ignore those old tutorials; the latest Wine beta works perfectly with Kindle for PC.
Try adding the development repository to your sources and upgrading to 1.3.7. In a terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T):
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-wine/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install wine1.3Then download and run the latest version of Kindle for PC. (you don't need to set it to Windows 98 mode)
2You may, in addition, want to try out Calibre
Calibre is feature-packed e-book reader, manager & more with a swish Cover Flow-like browser and the ability to sync books with actual hardware devices, share your books online and even convert web feeds into perfectly formatted eBooks – all at the punch of a button.
Better yet Calibre cis able to display pretty much any eBook format you throw at it as well allow for quick conversion between formats – more than earth for even the nerdiest eBookworms to burrow in.
-- Joey Sneddon for omgubuntu
While it doesn't help you with Kindle for PC, I believe you can use Kindle Cloud Reader on any computer with a web browser.
1If the intent is to manage the book on your Kindle, what about using a native application like Calibre rather than the Kindle Windows software? Calibre is in the Ubuntu repositories so you can install it via the software centre or using the command line:
sudo apt-get install calibreJust copy the .dlls
from
~/.wine/drive_c/"Program Files"/Amazon/Kindle/Microsoft.VC90.CRT to
~/.wine/drive_c/windows/winxsx/x86_microsoft.vc90.crt_1fc8b3b9a1e18e3b_9.0.30729.4148_none_deadbeefor whatever the exact directory name is on your system. That fixed the problem for me (Kindle PC version 1.10.1 (40262) dated 9/1/2012 installed on Ubuntu x86 12.04.)
You don't really want to be loading Windows DLLs from random sites found by a search engine: they may be fine, but they may also be corrupt or malware-infected.
1- I had problems with the PlayOnLinux solution above - it crashed without installing Kindle.
- I had used PlayOnLinux to download the Kindle application, as suggested, but no luck.
By then downloading
KindleForPC-installer.exeseparately from this address:then directing The PlayOnLinux Kindle script to use it (rather than download it) it Just Worked.
Hope that helps someone else!
1This is working for me. I have this working on both 32-bit and 64-bit systems. You'll need to get the Wine1.3 code, and the latest KindleforPC installer.
Here is a page to download the Wine1.3 .deb file
Alternately, you can type this from the command line:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-wine/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install wine1.3I didn't have to muck with the Windows98 spoofing as I did for the beta Kindle code, and it's a pretty decent reader on the PC.
I've opted to make a native electron app using this method:
(you need to have nodejs installed)
Open a terminal session and install Nativefier using this command:
npm install nativefier -gcd into a directory you want your app installed into.
run:
nativefier "" --name "Kindle" -p linux -a x64
Your output should resemble something like:
App built to /home/you/yourDirectory/Kindle-linux-x64
Right click and run the app. enjoy.
Many applications like this have dependencies on Internet Explorer style libraries which will of course exist on a Windows install. I have had to install IE under wine to resolve this in the past.
2You must run the installer from inside the .wine/drive_c directory.
Install PlayOnLinux. Also, in Synaptic, etc.
Run it.
Click 'install'
Search for 'kindle'
Select it and install.
PlayOnLinux will use and if needed will install the appropriate Wine version for the program. Let PlayOnLinux download automatically and install the Kindle for PC software instead of downloading and selecting it yourself.
I just want to share a solution for those who are trying to install Kindle on Ubuntu 14.04 and Linux Mint. In my case, I noticed that the ttf-mscorefonts-installer package was not properly installed by the Software Center App because it didn't show the agreement that I had to acknowledge. I think that the fonts were not installed because of that. So I manually installed the fonts from the terminal using sudo apt-get install ttf-mscorefonts-installer, acknowledged the agreement shown in a colored text format display, and after that, my Kindle does not crash anymore when I open my e-books. My Kindle now works on Wine versions 1.6 and 1.7 under PlayOnLinux.
For Linux Mint users, they should install the ubuntu-restricted-extras package before installing the ttf-mscorefonts-installer for some reason. I think without the ubuntu-restricted-extras, not all fonts will be available even after installing the ttf-mscorefonts-installer package
Hope this works! May the Lord bless!
I recently was having the same problem with Ubuntu 12.04, trying Kindle for PC. Following some clues I saw on forums, the best solution was to delete all files under .wine/drive_c/windows/winsxs/manifests. It works but may cause problems with other programs.
But I notice also that the only file to cause trouble was x86_microsoft.vc90.crt_1fc8b3b9a1e18e3b_9.0.30729.4148_none_deadbeef.manifest - inside the winsxs/ directory - and that the problem is that this file make reference to three files: msvcr90.dll, msvcp90.dll, msvcm90.dll
If you look inside
.wine/drive_c/windows/winsxs/x86_microsoft.vc90.crt_1fc8b3b9a1e18e3b_9.0.30729.4148_none_deadbeefyou will notice that only the file msvcr90.dll exists. So search for the other two dll files on Google and put them in this directory. For me, Kindle for PC is working just fine now after I've put these two dll files in this directory.
