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Re: [LUG] Mint 13 & 14 and Picasa .. problems yet again

 

On 08/07/13 09:31, Simon Robert -Cottage wrote:
> I've had mint 15, cinnamon, installed on my laptop (celeron, samsung
> R519) and it's great. However I'm thinking of switching back to
> kubuntu (mint KDE freezes after installation on my lappy) simply
> because there is no photo management application for gnome that even
> approaches digikam in terms of functionality.
>
> gthumb is just very basic, shotwell is OK, but imports everything to
> date taken folders and pics then need to be tagged. I'm no expert on
> windows software, but digikam is streets ahead of the photo
> applications that come packaged with windows 7 and I think you'd need
> to pay out  for anything that approaches it.
>
> Picasa I personally find annoying as it scans the entire drive for
> images so I have to plough through hundreds of CD covers and ebook
> covers to find my snaps.
>
> I would guess that the only thing Picasa does that digikam doesn't is
> that montage thing. There is no easy install Picasa on Kubuntu from
> the repo's, but  as it runs under wine you could install that and then
> download the windows version from google. Or maybe install
> playonlinux, which has an easier user interface and then grab Picasa.
> Mint 15 has Picasa packaged, it is a windows under wine version as the
> linux version was dumped a couple of years back, so if Mint KDE is OK
> for you, you can have digikam and an easy install Picasa.
>
> If you're going to do a new install of mint or kubuntu I find
> luckybackup is good. So long as you restore the home partition before
> installing anything like firefox or thunderbird (and probably Picasa)
> (they create default config files if they don't find them already
> there) everything should be much as you left it.
>
> But XP! I cannot imagine this will be nice for you after years with a
> good linux distro, clunky, non intuitive, security problems. And you
> won't be able to restore any desktop defaults just by copyng over
> .share/.mozilla/.etc etc
>
> good luck
>
> Si
>

There's quite a bit of wrong-headedness here as well unfortunately.

Firstly, mentally decouple Desktop Environments (DEs) from distributions
- Xubuntu/Kubuntu/Lubuntu and so on all only exist for convenience, and
no other reason. There is nothing stopping you installing (for example)
standard Ubuntu, which will by default come with Unity for the DE. You
can then issue the relevant apt-get commands to install Gnome3, Mate,
Fluxbox, Awesome, KDE, XFCE or whatever else you fancy, all at the same
time. You can then choose between them at your greeter screen. Saner
distributions (Debian, Slackware, Fedora and even Gentoo) may have
default DEs but there is an option during install to customise whichever
DE(s) you may want to end up with. Similarly, it would be an odd choice,
but there is nothing stopping you installing Kubuntu and then
immediately apt-get purging all KDE libraries/apps and installing Gnome.

By the same token, even less is holding you back from mixing and
matching the apps from different DEs on your system - why on earth would
you bother switching your entire distribution from Mint 15 to KDE just
because you want a particular KDE-flavoured photo-management
application? Are you insane? This is like exchanging your BMW for an
Audi because it didn't have a cup holder! Just "apt-get install digikam"
on your Mint box and it will install fine. Just like I use Gnome3 and
KDE applications on my system, frequently at the same time, although I
normally use Awesome as my DE.

As for mucking about with wine to get Picasa installed, what on earth
are you talking about? Google have been maintaining repos for their
software for most distros forever. Just follow the instructions:

http://www.google.com/linuxrepositories/

More exotic distros not catered for directly will usually have sorted
out their own ebuilds, tar.gz or whatever other crazy exotic system they
might use for distributing software: but then, if you're using some
oddball weirdo non-mainstream distro you should probably be smart enough
to know this and fend for yourself anyway.

Finally, Picasa only scans your entire root filesystem if you are dumb
enough to let it do so (in light of recent NSA/GCHQ revelations, it
suddenly becomes slightly more clear why Google would set such an
obviously retarded default). There is a simple options dialogue where
you can tell Picasa which parts of your filesystem it's allowed to scan,
probably best left at $HOME/Pictures or similar. Personally I wouldn't
trust it on my systems at all but hey ho, Picasa isn't a bad bit of
software I suppose.

Not having a go at you here chief, if anything, hope I can save you some
time and effort by correcting some - to me at least - pretty massive
gaping errors in your approach.

But yeah, going back to XP after several years on Linux - *shudder*. Now
Win7 or even Win8 might be a bit more manageable, but XP? No thanks.

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