Jamie's Random Musings
Various thoughts and adventures, including but not limited to Linux, Windows XP and Widows Vista, and assorted bits of hardware new and old.
Monday 24 November 2008, 8:48 PM
Photo Management on Linux - Part 1
There are a number of different photo management programs available for Linux - more than I have either the time or interest to look at, honestly - and of course different versions of Linux have different programs available. I'll try to give a brief overview of both of these areas.
- Ubuntu (Intrepid Ibex): Includes the F-Spot Photo Manager and the Eye of Gnome Image Viewer in the standard installation. I have added the gThumb Image Viewer. When I insert an SD Flash Card in the memory card slot of my laptop, or I connect a digital camera via USB cable, Ubuntu adds an icon for it to the desktop, and it pops up a window asking if I want to start either F-Spot or gThumb on the photos.
- Fedora 10 (Cambridge) Preview: includes the gThumb Image Viewer in the standard installation. I have added the F-Spot Photo Manager. When I insert an SD card or connect a camera, it asks if I want to start gThumb or F-Spot.
- openSuSE 11.1 Beta5: Same as Fedora 10
- MEPIS 8.0 Beta5: includes digiKam (0.9) and showFoto in the standard installation. When I insert an SD card or connect a camera, it asks if I want to start digiKam or simply open a browser window on the new photos.
- Mandriva One 2009.0: includes Gwenview Image Viewer in the standard installation. I have added digiKam (0.10). When I insert an SD card or connect a camera, it briefly shows a notification in the desktop window, but it doesn't ask me if I want to start any program automatically.
A couple of things are worth noting here. First, the photo management and image viewing programs are generally built on top of one of the Linux desktop management systems - either Gnome (F-Spot, gThumb, Eye of Gnome) or KDE (digiKam, showFoto, Gwenview). Further, digiKam was very extensively modified from KDE 3.5 (digiKam 0.9) to KDE 4 (digiKam 0.10).
The next step will be to take a closer look at each of these programs.
jw 24/11/2008
PreviousComments on this post
Nice article Mr. Watson. I haven't tried all of these programs, but after using digiKam I am spoiled. Now it is the only program I use to download photos from the camera, and I use the GIMP to resize, and touch up.
@ator1940 - Thanks, I appreciate your reading and positive comments. May I ask if you use the KDE 3 (0.9) or KDE 4 (0.10) version of digiKam?
Unfortunately one can't use F-Spot, since it changes the DateTimeOriginal EXIF field value of any picture it touches. This is a bug that's been around for 3 years, and despite the seriousness of the problem (destroying user data is among the worst things a program could do) it has remained unfixed, which is particularly odd considering how easy it is to implement a basic fix (you just disable whatever code modifies that value).
So, please don't recommend people to use F-Spot, without at least warning them that their EXIF data is in jeopardy.
