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Mollikins
Asked: 2010-11-24 23:57:33 +0800 CST

Kindle for PC via Wine

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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?

wine ebooks kindle

13 Answers

  1. 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 wine1.3

    Then download and run the latest version of Kindle for PC. (you don't need to set it to Windows 98 mode)

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  2. You may, in addition, want to try out Calibre Install 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

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  3. 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.

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  4. If 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 calibre
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  5. This 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 wine1.3

    I 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.

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  6. Just 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_deadbeef

    or 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.

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    • 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.exe separately from this address:

      http://www.amazon.com/gp/kindle/pc/download

      then directing The PlayOnLinux Kindle script to use it (rather than download it) it Just Worked.

    Hope that helps someone else!

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  8. I've opted to make a native electron app using this method:

    (you need to have nodejs installed)

    1. Open a terminal session and install Nativefier using this command:

      npm install nativefier -g

    2. cd into a directory you want your app installed into.

    3. run:

      nativefier "https://read.amazon.com" --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.

    enter image description here

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  9. 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.

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  10. You must run the installer from inside the .wine/drive_c directory.

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