Install OverDrive Media Console on Manjaro

Introduction

For the last few months, Manjaro has been the operating system I use as my daily driver for personal tasks. I still have my Surface Go tablet which runs Windows 10 that I use for tasks line syncing my Garmin watch and GPS. On one of the posts in my feed, I briefly mentioned my audio solution for podcasts and audiobooks which mainly consists of a standalone MP3 player (FiiO M6).

For podcasts, I manage them through my NewsBlur RSS feed reader. When I want to download them for offline listening, I've written a .NET console app (podnet) to manage that process for me. Audiobooks are a little trickier. Public domain works I get through Librivox. The limitation there though is that I'm only public domain works are available. Therefore if I want other audiobooks, I either have to purchase them (which has its own issues because of DRM) or borrow them from my local library. I prefer to borrow my books and audiobooks from the library. Not only am I supporting my local library but I also save money in the process.

Many libraries including my own manage digital assets through OverDrive. OverDrive offers a variety of ways for transferring books and audiobooks to your devices. Linux however is not one of those solutions. Until February 2022, OverDrive provided a Windows desktop application (OverDrive Media Console) for managing books and audiobooks. Although there is no Linux desktop application, Linux has Wine. Wine according to their website is "...a compatibility layer capable of running Windows applications on several POSIX-compliant operating systems, such as Linux, macOS, & BSD.".

In this post, I'll show how you can use Wine to install OverDrive Media Console on a PC running the Manjaro Linux distribution.

Install Wine

In order to install OverDrive Media Console, you'll need to install Wine. To do so:

Open the terminal.
Install Wine and all its dependencies with the following command:
```
sudo pacman -S wine winetricks wine-mono wine_gecko
```