Linux Version?

Just wondering if there is any thought towards making a downloadable or purchase version of the scriptures much like this, but for use in Linux. I am an Ubuntu user and would enjoy having the scriptures on my desktop as well as online.

Thanks!

There are 3rd Party (Not church affiliated) programs that do supply the scriptures on the computer and have reasonable functionality. In addition there are some that are usable on Linux natively or through Java.

A community project is Scripture Study Plus that is Java based but not ready yet.

lds.trooper wrote:Just wondering if there is any thought towards making a downloadable or purchase version of the scriptures much like this, but for use in Linux. I am an Ubuntu user and would enjoy having the scriptures on my desktop as well as online.

Thanks!

I doubt the Church would dedicate time to such a project on their own dime and time. It just wouldn't be worth it to reach out to a small minority, unless the code was already written portable enough. However, I think it's a great idea for an open-source project. In fact, there is already a project or two about doing a web and/or cross-platform scripture study program. The thread is [thread=113]here[/thread].

The current focus for this product is to provide more languages however I've been in discussions about the future of the product and it is entirely possible that in the future it would be provided in a cross platform format. I don't have any guarantees or promises but there is a glimmer of hope for all Linux users...which I am one.

Tom

lds.trooper wrote:Just wondering if there is any thought towards making a downloadable or purchase version of the scriptures much like this, but for use in Linux. I am an Ubuntu user and would enjoy having the scriptures on my desktop as well as online.

Thanks!

In the mean time, before something new becomes available, there are a couple of potential solutions, as long as you're just wanting the scripture text and not a polished GUI application program.

1) If you can get hold of the old floppy-based product the Church used to sell, I would be happy to send you a C program that decompresses the actual scripture content into a plain text file. It does not handle cross references or other footnotes. From there, you can grep it, etc. I also have a Perl script that greps the text file and produces reasonably formatted verses.

2) It should be very easy to use wget and an HTML parser to download the text from the Church web site and process it into whatever format you want. If you can't find an HTML parser you like, I'd be happy to share mine in case it would be useful.

Hope that helps.

Wow! Thank you so much for the excellent replies. Thank you also for the offer of the help to obtain the text, please let me look into this further?

I find it interesting that Linux is still seen as a small minority, and perhaps it is. I will look into the threads mentioned as well.

Happy New Years guys and may the Lord guide us safely.

lds.trooper wrote:Just wondering if there is any thought towards making a downloadable or purchase version of the scriptures much like this, but for use in Linux. I am an Ubuntu user and would enjoy having the scriptures on my desktop as well as online.!

One other possible solution that's not mentioned is to use WINE windows emulator for Linux. The reason I say possible is because not everything will run on it, but it does get better all the time from what I read.

It may be available via your update utility or you can go to the official website at http://www.winehq.org/

I tried with Wine but during installation an error occur and no way to install it.
The error say something like 'run only with windows'. I tried several months ago with OpenSUSE 10.2 and Wine included in that version.
I tried to setup Wine with different Windows versions but the result was always the same.
So give it back.
Now I have OpenSUSE 10.3 with Wine 0.9.44 but no willing to test it cause there's an online version!

I have used lds-get, a utility to download the html scriptures and other content from lds.org

http://www.nathanbullock.org/nathan/lds-get/

Just for my love for community I try to install LDS Scriptures on my OpenSUSE 10.3 with Wine 0.9.44.
Put CD into drive. Run setup.exe.
Waiting for some errors. None! Maybe they will arise later. When it run.
Installation complete! Wow.
Let's start. Run ... (crossing fingers)
With my great wonder it works very well indeed!

I can navigate through all scripture in Italian too but searching!
When I press search button it crash. Actually exit the program suddenly.
I start wcSView.exe from a comman line. It show me the list of libraries during startup but nothing at the end!
I try with data stored into HDD, instead of CDROM, but the result doesn't change.
Because my motivation stops here, I'll continue to use the online resources.

I have spent the past few days looking for ways to get an OFFLINE version of the scriptures running on linux. I use YanCEyWare on my pda but the desktop version is based on .net and that really dosnt like Wine very much. So far the best I have come up with is simple .html files that I downloaded already compiled together. For the Sunday School manual then I'm stuck with just the .pdf

lds-get is a pretty nice utillity, if you can get it to work. The instuctions are a bit vague and it is easy to imagine a novice getting lost using it. Also, it dosnt pull them from the site that you use when you go to the online version of the scriptures. it uses a sort of online archive that isnt as complete. For example, all the Teachings of the Prophets are there EXCEPT for the Joseph Smith one, which is the one that we are using this year.

Well, I admit that I am lazy so I just used wget (or maybe it was curl) and pulled it down into a big 1.5GB directory structure on my laptop. Now the stinker here is that every link to, say, 1 Nephi 1 points to the entire chapter so I have a copy of the entire chapter a dozen or so times. Some softlink magic could cut the size down, probably by ten times easily, but I haven't been bored enough to pull that off yet. Another option I've used in the past is to point Adobe Acrobat at a site and had it crawl it into one nice PDF and that works very nicely too.

It should be trivial for something to be created that is semi-polished, though, and cross-platform. I'll even do it if there's enough demand for it. I need to check out the lds-get thing first though.

mkmurray wrote:I doubt the Church would dedicate time to such a project on their own dime and time. It just wouldn't be worth it to reach out to a small minority, unless the code was already written portable enough. However, I think it's a great idea for an open-source project. In fact, there is already a project or two about doing a web and/or cross-platform scripture study program. The thread is [thread=113]here[/thread].

I disagree that linux is a small minority. In fact, linux is strong overseas and a more affordable option for members living in developing countries. I think the church should support linux just because of members living in poor countries.

ubuntuFan wrote:I disagree that linux is a small minority. In fact, linux is strong overseas and a more affordable option for members living in developing countries. I think the church should support linux just because of members living in poor countries.

I agree it is a more affordable option, especially in developing countries where finances are limited. But I still have my doubts that it is what I would consider "strong." Perhaps the words "small minority" is a bit exaggerating.

As for the "support linux just because of members living in poor countries," I don't know if you mean this idea of scriptures software or just every Church software. I don't think the Church should just start supporting linux for the heck of it. I think there needs to be a consistent rollout so that training and support is uniform across the board. I'm not saying rolling out linux is a bad idea (it'd actually be cool to see the Church cut some costs on licensed OS and software), I just think it is expensive to redo your whole desktop image, software, and training resources.

It appears I posted this a long time ago, and I'm not sure why I was so harsh on an idea of doing a linux version of the Scripture software. It would be terrific I agree! I've used it and it is extremely useful for in-depth study. I think the real decision would depend on what technologies the current software is written with and how portable the product already is. I don't think it wise to write another version just for a handful of Linux users (and I really do mean a handful; seriously like less than 10% of users of the software would be Linux users).

I would love to see a version of the scriptures come out for Linux, especially for the new types of PCs that have been coming out lately. With the advent of the Eee PC and related mini-notebooks, the need for applications to run on Linux has increased. These small notebooks would be perfect for use in church. They are small and would be easy to carry around. You may still be able to run Wine on these notebooks, but it would be better to have native applications. The Church would be wise to release a scripture program that can be used in Windows, Linux and for OSX.

Another thought came to me while looking around. A version of the scriptures for the Kindle would be nice (probably exists).

I seem to recall talk of an open-source project to develop a scripture viewer. I thought it had Linux as at least one of its target platforms. If there isn't one, why not start one?

If I understand correctly, the scriptural text can be downloaded in a useful form for local storage and use. Several years ago, I wrote a small C program to convert the old floppy-based product to plain text, one line per verse, which works great for 'grep' and friends. I have another small program that takes a reference as arguments and outputs the specified verses in a paragraph-per-verse format. A reasonable interactive program shouldn't be too terribly difficult. I suspect defining the requirements would take nearly as much time as writing the code (maybe more).

Here's a Linux reader with LDS available scriptures and literature that's gaining popularity...

http://tony.maro.net/ossramblings/thummim.php

Mike

rmrichesjr wrote:I seem to recall talk of an open-source project to develop a scripture viewer. I thought it had Linux as at least one of its target platforms. If there isn't one, why not start one?

If I understand correctly, the scriptural text can be downloaded in a useful form for local storage and use. Several years ago, I wrote a small C program to convert the old floppy-based product to plain text, one line per verse, which works great for 'grep' and friends. I have another small program that takes a reference as arguments and outputs the specified verses in a paragraph-per-verse format. A reasonable interactive program shouldn't be too terribly difficult. I suspect defining the requirements would take nearly as much time as writing the code (maybe more).

We are looking at providing the current "online" scriptures in an offline mode. If approved, then this product would run natively on Linux under Java.

Tom

tomw wrote:We are looking at providing the current "online" scriptures in an offline mode. If approved, then this product would run natively on Linux under Java.

Tom

Cool!!! Please keep us posted.

I would like to put my two cents worth in towards the church releasing a version of the standard works for the Kindle. I know that there are a few versions available. I have a previous version on CD and one for my ancient Palm Vx. Neither of these versions are compatible with any of my new / current technology. I can't put them on my Kindle or my linux laptop. If the church wants to control the content they could certainly DRM the files.

If anyone knows of a version of the standard works that is available in a format for the Kindle that actually works I'd love to hear about it.

(This is personal thought, not anything official...)

I would think the quickest way to get the standard works (or any other Church content) on a new device would be to download the content from http://www.lds.org and convert it to whatever format is needed. Based on my recollection of discussions in this forum, most likely in another thread, I understand it's okay for individuals to download the content and store it on their own devices, and it's okay to distribute a program that does the downloading and/or conversion. The only restriction is that the content itself can't be distributed from non-Church-party-A to party-B.

If you can find a set of floppies from the Church's old floppy-based standard words product, I have a C program (for Linux but should be easy to port, or might just run) to convert the text itself to plain text. I just don't have the bible dictionary, topical guide, or cross reference.

I would suggest a good community project, perhaps standalone, perhaps Church-connected, would be to write some a few short programs. The first program would download the scriptures or other content and convert it to a generic plain-text-based format. Each of the other programs would convert from the generic format to the format needed by a specific device. If my employment situation allowed it, I'd be more than willing to participate.

Just for the record the Scriptures application works perfectly in Wine. I don't know if it's been updated in the last five years but the one I have I just double-click on setup.exe and three minutes later (SUSE Linux) I have an icon in my Computer menu that says 'LDS Scriptures'. If nothing else that gives you equivalent features if you have this old version of the application available.

With that said I think a new application entirely is in order. I've signed up and requested the XML version the Church has so I can make a proper version but I think that's just the start... have an application that will be able to access all Church content as desired.... be able to pull it down in XML and then display it however the end user desires. "I want the Ensign from 2009-01." Click, click, done. "I want all of the First Presidency talks for the last three decades." Click, click, done. There is so much content that something cross-platform (Java.... the church has their own API for things in-house apparently) an interactive could be a great use of technology. Provide markup capabilities, bookmarks, cross-references etc. for everything in there. I'm not sure my request for the XML will be approved at this point (been a month or more at least I think) but if it does this is what I'm hoping to work toward.

dajoker wrote:Just for the record the Scriptures application works perfectly in Wine. I don't know if it's been updated in the last five years but the one I have I just double-click on setup.exe and three minutes later (SUSE Linux) I have an icon in my Computer menu that says 'LDS Scriptures'. If nothing else that gives you equivalent features if you have this old version of the application available.

With that said I think a new application entirely is in order. I've signed up and requested the XML version the Church has so I can make a proper version but I think that's just the start... have an application that will be able to access all Church content as desired.... be able to pull it down in XML and then display it however the end user desires. "I want the Ensign from 2009-01." Click, click, done. "I want all of the First Presidency talks for the last three decades." Click, click, done. There is so much content that something cross-platform (Java.... the church has their own API for things in-house apparently) an interactive could be a great use of technology. Provide markup capabilities, bookmarks, cross-references etc. for everything in there. I'm not sure my request for the XML will be approved at this point (been a month or more at least I think) but if it does this is what I'm hoping to work toward.

Thank you for the information that a "Scriptures application" works under Wine! In the Wine AppDB, I see "LDS Scriptures" with good test results and ratings in 2007. However, the URL doesn't work; yields "Invalid request". Is this the product on CD, or is this something that can be downloaded from the Church web site?

Your ideas for a cross-platform XML-based application sounds great.

rmrichesjr wrote:Is this the product on CD, or is this something that can be downloaded from the Church web site?

I only know of the CD product available through the Distribution Centers and LDSCatalog.com:

http://www.ldscatalog.com/webapp/wcs/st ... sortOr%3D1

It appears they've changed the look of the product and they've also put the two editions on the same CD. The Resource edition is cool because you can read the Scriptures in English on one side and on the other side be looking at transliterated Hebrew supplemented with a Hebrew Dictionary. Now you can be like a BYU religion professor and say stuff like "In the original Greek translation, the word was actually..."

Also, I don't know if the version I remember of the software was just 1.0 or was 1.1, like what it is currently listed.

Thanks for the additional information. I found I had the 1.0 version on CD at home already, so I installed it in English and Spanish (for my wife who is studying it). I have ordered version 1.1.