Google Releases Picasa for Linux 486
chrisd writes "Hi, everyone. Today I'm pleased to announce that we're making Picasa, our photo management application, available for Linux. This is a pre-beta labs release and since we're still learning on how to best make software for Linux, we're asking that you submit your bugs as you find them. Picasa for Linux uses Wine internally; this shows a bit in the interface, but it works even better than we had hoped. Download it and check it out! A list of supported distributions can be found in the FAQ. We hope our patches to Wine will help make it easier for everyone to run Windows apps on Linux and other Unix-like systems. Thanks to our pals at CodeWeavers who did much of the heavy lifting, and to Marcus Meissner, whose libgphoto support patch was a welcome surprise."
Files available in US only (apparantly) (Score:5, Informative)
http://picasa.google.com.nyud.net:8080/linux/ [nyud.net]
http://picasa.google.com.nyud.net:8080/linux/faq.
Chris, looks good so far, big thanks.
Re:MOD PARENT DOWN!!! (apparantly) (Score:3, Informative)
Re:MOD PARENT DOWN!!! (apparantly) (Score:3, Informative)
Speaking as a Googler, this is incorrect. One of the download servers had a problem which was resolved. Please download and enjoy, wherever you are.
Site now up worldwide? [google.com]
Picasa Linux version also in Europe [google.com]
Re:MOD PARENT DOWN!!! (apparantly) (Score:2, Informative)
404 Not Found
Error
Not Found
The requested URL
and the comments in the google groups [google.com] page discovered its not working outside the US made the "apparantly" there.
I'm glad it works for you in Asia, but it doesn't work here in England.
Re:MOD PARENT DOWN!!! (apparantly) (Score:2, Interesting)
Google offers this to everybody (Score:3, Informative)
This has nothing to do with Google policy. One of the download servers had a problem which was resolved. Please download and enjoy, wherever you are.
Site now up worldwide? [google.com]
Picasa Linux version also in Europe [google.com]
wow (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:wow (Score:5, Funny)
Re:wow (Score:2, Interesting)
Google recently turned up at Oxford University to tell us all about job prospects with them. There was a Question and Answer session at the end, and the chap from their Mobile department was asked whether Google Earth was coming to Linux anytime soon. He said he knew the answer, but wasn't going to tell us.
Read into it what you will.
Re:wow (Score:4, Informative)
Re:wow (Score:3, Informative)
http://f-spot.org/Main_Page [f-spot.org]
Re:wow (Score:3, Informative)
(I know, it's from Novell and Mono is Miguel de Icazza's little pet project. It's a fine app and runs plenty fast for me to not care one way or the other. Mono is Free, f-spot is Free, and the OS is runs on is Free, so that's all I care about.)
Re:wow (Score:2)
the only thing that I really noticed to be out of place is the bar on the top with the file, edit, view, etc options. it doesn't look like a native widget. but changing the color to the same color i use everywhere would already do a lot of good by itself;)
other then that, I must say that the application is very fast and quite snappy.
though i prefer a true native port I'd say thumbs up for making it a high quality port
Re:wow (Score:3, Informative)
These softwares are still improving too.
And guess what, programs like Digikam actually integrate well with a KDE or even a Gnome desktop, are native apps that don't need Wine libs to run, and don't appear like a sore point on your desktop.
Re:wow (Score:4, Insightful)
True, but that's not what they're doing. They're using winelib, which is a native Linux/X toolkit. It only just happens to behave very similarly to the Windows API.
I found a bug already! (Score:5, Funny)
Didn't really get any further than that.
Fixed in CVS (Score:5, Funny)
not free (Score:4, Insightful)
No source code.
Re:not free (Score:5, Informative)
Re:not free (Score:2)
Re:not free (Score:3, Informative)
Re:not free (Score:5, Funny)
No thanks... I'd rather wait a while till the product reaches the G-Spot!
Re:not free (Score:2)
Re:not free (Score:4, Informative)
Fuck MP3, then. Use Vorbis, which is Free of royalties, patents, etc.
Fuck video codecs that require licensing, then. Use Theora, which is Free of royalties, patents, etc.
All in all, Google didn't do their homework here, I think. There are plenty of ways to overcome the mentioned restrictions. If it were open source, I'd write the patch myself.
Sadly, it's all closed up, and is useless to everybody. Too bad.
Re:not free (Score:5, Insightful)
No where in this annoucement do they say that they are releasing Picasa as open source software. They do allow use of it free of charge.
Software developers are really in a bind with Linux. If you don't create software for Linux, Linux people whine that you are not supporting them.
Create software for Linux, Linux people whine that its not open source.
Picasa is an awesome photo management application. Be glad Google ported it to Linux, and that you can use it for free. If you demand that all software you use is open source, look elsewhere. Note that there are many useful applications that developers, for many reasons, don't want to release as open source. Limiting yourself to open source limits your choices.
Re:not free (Score:5, Informative)
Re:not free (Score:5, Informative)
Re:not free (Score:4, Funny)
Re:not free (Score:5, Insightful)
Someone offers you to come live in their country, but only under the condition that you keep very quiet about your own opinions and never criticize the government. Initially, it may seem that standing firm in your belief in free speech would limit your choices -- you would have to turn down the offer to live in that country. It is not hard to see, however, how abandoning free speech is what really would deprive you of your freedom. Who knows, after some time you might not even be able to leave their country, would you wish to do so.
Re:not free (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:not free (Score:3, Insightful)
> with free speech and free press. In the long run, it's really non-free
> software that limits ones choices.
OK, that's great. So did you miss the part about how Google's Picasa porting effort resulted in over 200 patches to Wine, and a high-profile bug-chasing effort? If you don't think that Windows compatibility for Linux is important, you are out of your mind. The only reason I ever boot into Windows is when a research p
Re:not free (Score:3, Interesting)
You are referring to the Netherlands [msn.com], I assume?
Re:not free (Score:3, Insightful)
I here that a lot. The answer is simple. Write your own. I support fighting for the right to create free software. However it is just as wrong to force others to write free software.
Google is providing a good program that you can use under Linux. This means one more reason that you don't have to run Windows.
Google has given back code to the wine project. This will make it easier for other people to port code from Windows to Linux. Also it pro
Re:not free (Score:4, Insightful)
Our choices to limit, neh?
Or do you think your argument works well with other things -
"Why be a vegetarian, it limits your choices!"
"Why boycott company _x_, it limits your choices!"
or even:
"Why be straight, it limits your choices!"
Limiting choices is not, of itself, such a horrible thing. Especially when much of that "choice" is shit software made by a company who doesn't give a flying monkey anus about making quality products, or anything remotely secure.
Re:not free (Score:3, Insightful)
You can't expect the IT world to change from proprietary/closed to open over night. It will take time. This is a very good step in the right direction IMO. I would love to see more free apps on Windows brought over to Linux.
Having more "mains
Re:not free (Score:2)
All very well, but... (Score:2, Insightful)
Don't get me wrong - I'm always happy to see new contributions to the cause, but this makes me a bit uneasy, somehow.
It's NOT "fairly standard", it's for LINUX! (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not a "fairly standard application" that we all take for granted. It's Google, a big corporation, openly and freely providing one of their major software applications for Linux (albeit using Wine). This does NOT happen very often, and we should bow down and praise those (Google) who do it! It's NOT just a "regular" software release.
Re:All very well, but... (Score:3, Interesting)
I expected more than just a WineLib port, though. Hopes were high that they would use one of the de-facto standard widget toolkits for Linux, GTK+
Re:All very well, but... (Score:5, Funny)
Because it's from GOOGLE.
Slashdot:
News about Google. Stuff about Google that matters. Google, Google. Google.
Everyone has missed the "real" announcement here (Score:5, Insightful)
This announcement has very little to do with Picassa.
Read between the lines (or even one particular line, explicitly): OUR patches to wine.
Google, which has a proven track-record of success when they start off in some strange new direction, has taken on the task of making Wine work better.
Think about that for a minute, and you'll get the "big" news here.
suprise? (Score:2)
Can someone explain this?
Re:suprise? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:suprise? (Score:2)
Mod parent up!
Re:suprise? (Score:3, Interesting)
Are you sure? All the digital cameras I've ever used have been USB Storage devices - so, presuming your Linux distribution is friendly about autodetecting and automounting, downloading photos from cameras can be no more esoteric than reading a file off your hard drive.
Re:suprise? (Score:2, Informative)
Lots of cameras use PTP [wikipedia.org], rather than USB Mass Storage. My Canon IXUS 55 is one example. I'm not sure why they do. =) Anyway, libgphoto is what's generally used to speak to such cameras.
Re:suprise? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:suprise? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:suprise? (Score:5, Informative)
Second, Windows has several methods to interface with digital cameras. One of the is direct filesystem access (works just fine). The second is TWAIN. Originally just for scanners it is also used for digital cameras. On third, WIA (Windows Imaging Architecture).
WINE already had a TWAIN implementation (written by Corel during WordPerfect 2000 times) but it was only able to use SANE, and not really able to use libgphoto2 in a good way.
So what I did was to just add the lowlevel libgphoto TWAIN driver to WINE, and CodeWeavers provided a gphoto Import GUI for it. My part of work was small compared to the stuff the CodeWeavers people did.
Voila - importing from any kind of cameras into Picasa.
Btw, I think all of this is in regular WINE 0.9.14.
Ciao, Marcus
Glorious (Score:4, Funny)
Step 2 - make all your links to software dead
Step 3 - Profit?
Re:Glorious (Score:2, Funny)
story title wrong. (Score:2, Insightful)
Picasa for linux would be a great thing, but it seems that a native version is either not in the interest of Google or out of their reach.
I like Picasa but I really hate the half assed ness of releasing an app for "linux" when it's simply rewritten windows code so that it runs under Wine.
Google, you want to gain the everlasting love of the linux people? Release a native picasa that does not use wine in any way, shape or form.
Everyone remembers how wel
What are you smoking? (Score:2, Insightful)
In this fashion it is absolutely no different than if the app linked to GTK or QT to release a "native" version. It is native. It is compiled for and runs under Linux without any API emulators or ABI interfaces required. That is the definition of a native application.
All this aside, have you even downloaded the thing? From your comments I would venture you have not. It is extremely well-polished and as stable as the Windows version.
As
Re:What are you smoking? (Score:5, Interesting)
really? what crack are you smoking. I have tried it and I have ran into some of the below released bugs that the Picasa guys admit to.
# You can't backup pictures or burn CDs
# The system tray does not close with loss of focus
If you bring up the media detector menu, you have to either start picasa or stop the media detector to get the menu to go away.
# If you have a remote home directory, the performance may be poor. Picasa uses many small files in the ~/.picasa directory, and if the home directory is slow, then Picasa will be slow. Picasa will warn you if it detects your home directory is on NFS. To work around this, you can create the directory
# Picasa notices don't stay on a given desktop.
Picasa pops up notices to let you know it's found new photos or has added photos to its library. These notices come on the current desktop; some users would rather they stayed on the same desktop that Picasa itself was on.
# On Ubuntu 5.10, the 'Ctrl-K' shortcut for keywords doesn't behave correctly.
Using the menu works correctly.
# Dual head video cards don't work properly with Picasa for slideshows and timelines and so operate in a fallback mode.
# Blogging - the palette selector is truncated.
You can't change colors of text while posting to your blog.
# Music playback during slideshow doesn't work
# The opening Picasa dialog has a spin loop and consumes a lot of CPU
# We do not support browsing to hidden directories
Funny I dont have those problems in the Windows version.
You must be a microsoft developer to consider picasa "It is extremely well-polished and as stable as the Windows version." with some of those big show stoppers in there.
The first one on the list is a major show stopper for me and nearly 50% of picasa users.
Re:What are you smoking? (Score:5, Interesting)
In this fashion it is absolutely no different than if the app linked to GTK or QT to release a "native" version. It is native. It is compiled for and runs under Linux without any API emulators or ABI interfaces required. That is the definition of a native application.
Actually... from this post [winehq.com] on the Wine devel mailing list Can anyone confirm that the Windows and Linux binary are identical? If true it should be read as Google pays Codeweavers to fix Wine to run Picasa. Which I guess is still a good thing.
Re:What are you smoking? (Score:4, Informative)
Windows version
md5sum Picasa.exe:
b8806a095619d3327e7e415af8b72d48 *Picasa2.exe
Linux version
md5sum
b8806a095619d3327e7e415af8b72d48
Yeah, its pretty much the same.
Re:story title wrong. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:story title wrong. (Score:2)
I think that's a reasonable path to take when porting smaller apps. If Wine was 100% Windows compatible then you could take any Windows source code and compile it against winelib to get a native Linux binary.
Re:story title wrong. (Score:3, Funny)
Yeah, Google wants the love of all five of them.
Re:story title wrong. (Score:3, Informative)
Google slashdotted? (Score:3, Funny)
Privacy? (Score:2)
First impressions (Score:5, Informative)
One or two problems remain (and I'm sure more will pop up after I play with it for more than 10 minutes). It doesn't integrate into any desktop environment at all - its very much a Windows application hacked to bits so it runs smoothly in Linux, and it shows at points. With the exception of Desktop, it does not remember stored folders from either Konqueror or Nautilus, and maintains meaningless links to "My Documents", "My Pictures", "My Music" and other folders which don't exist in the file requesters. This could use some work.
None do (Score:4, Informative)
C:\NGRDLTNS.W95 (Score:3, Informative)
This means they are 100% constricted by the Win32 ABI. There is no way to escape the worst of the Windowsisms, and no way to bypass things that are badly emulated.
Picasa and QT (Score:2, Interesting)
Works in Gentoo (Score:3, Informative)
And before someone says something, no, I didn't try to compile it from source...
It's a start... (Score:2)
Until someone decides to make an equivalent open-source version of Picasa, I'll gladly take a free version that enhances the community as a byproduct of its development.
Regarding the open source complaints... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Regarding the open source complaints... (Score:2)
Also, good luck functioning in normal society.
almost everything electronic uses non-open software, so good luck avoiding them.
Use what works.
Possible motive? (Score:3, Interesting)
Even the Linux-platform releases (like this one) use Windows concepts, architecture, standards etc. So long as Linux emulates Windows, its never gonna attain superiority as a better platform.
Is it Googles intention to establish that Windows is indeed the better option for the computing world?
-
Re:Possible motive? (Score:3, Insightful)
Offtopic, but it must be said. (Score:3, Insightful)
I know there are 100 fair reasons to mod this post down, but it just seemed important to say.
I often get depressed about changes to copyright law, patents, etc. which favor media companies at the expense of most citizens. This code contribution goes the other way. Thanks to everyone who worked on it.
This is a milestone in Linux for the masses. (Score:2)
Linux for the masses has been suffering from the "chicken and egg" issue. Sure there is some awesome quality free (beer, speech etc.) software out there for Linux, but Windows and Mac still benefit from some must have (photoshop and al).
As far as my
don't forget to read this ;) (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.winehq.com/pipermail/wine-devel/2006-M
Eeep! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Eeep! (Score:3, Funny)
Just don't wake it up!
photo management software... (Score:3, Interesting)
I never understood it...
I just use a little thing called "directories". Hey, Nautilus and Thunar and Konqueror and Windows Explorer even have these nifty "thumbnail" things that allow me to see them all at once!
Why would I need special software for this purpose?
I'm honestly curious here... I've never been "managing my photos" and thought, "hey I wish I had a special application that could show me all the pictures in thumbnail format so I can organize them into directories..."
Granted, I've never tried Picassa.
What's so great about it?
Re:photo management software... (Score:3, Informative)
But here's my experience. I use iPhoto to "manage" (very ugly word for the funfactor involved) about 10.000 pictures from the last six years.
I import them by way of connecting the camera to my computer. It's literally a one button process. The pictures are kept in filmrolls (directories with cute filmroll icon and useful metadata), and I can then do a number of things to the pictures, like
Where's the love? Give Google a break :/ (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, give them a break. They're making baby steps in the right direction. They've released what, a pre-beta via their labs? And so many people on Slashdot are expecting it to be a polished product... that's just wrong. Their forte is definitely not Linux desktop apps, but from the sounds of things, they certainly want to improve. Oh shock! They're not there on day 1. Or day 2. Well, Linux wasn't written in a day, nor were the plethora of other desktop apps for Linux.
Let's not forget the human factor. Those programmers that worked on getting Picasa running on Google I'm sure would love some positive feedback to encourage them to continue working hard on it. I know I would. They're probably also unhappy that this pre-beta version isn't 'up to par' with the Windows version, but they're working on improving that. Reading their FAQ endeared the team that did this to me.
As for Wine usage. Big deal. It's not like they're charging you $69 for the app. It works, and they aim to improve it. Sounds to me like they had a hard time trying to get it to work on so many different distros, instead of just say.. Red Hat. This project was only announced 4-5 months ago. Let's hope to see Google Earth before Christmas!
Re:Where's the love? Give Google a break :/ (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes there's DigiKam. Yes there's Fspot. However people on Windows don't know how good those things are and when they m
Poorly designed (Score:4, Informative)
10 points for style; -10million for not getting it (Score:3, Interesting)
No source? Okay, that's understandable (I guess), and I have to admit, I still buy closed source games (for Linux). But . . .
It uses WINE? With all due respect to the hard work put in by CodeWeavers and countless others on WINE, WINE is not the answer. WINE is a stopgap measure, a way to open people's eyes to the power and Freedom of open source while still letting them use apps they are comfortable with. When you have the source code to an application and you use WINE to "port" it instead, that shows that you are either really lazy (which I'll grant is one of the three great virtues of programmers), or you aren't really interested in porting your software to Linux.
And that's not even getting into the fact that WINE is ia32 only, so this only runs on one of the many platforms that Linux runs on. If they'd only open source it, I predict it would soon become a true port without WINE, and run on all platforms that Linux runs on.
This isn't software for Linux; the correct title of this article should be "Google Donates Patches to WINE" with a sideline that WINE now runs Picasa.
Re:Why US only? (Score:5, Informative)
Deb: http://dl.google.com/linux/deb/pool/non-free/p/pi
RPM: http://dl.google.com/linux/rpm/stable/i386/picasa
Binary installer: http://dl.google.com/linux/standalone/picasa-2.2.
Re:Why US only? (Score:3, Insightful)
Coral works here (Score:2)
At first I wondered why someone would make a Coral link to Google, Google probably being the least likely site to be
Via the Coral proxy I (The Netherlands) do get to all the parts of the site, including the download. .deb file downloaded very fast and the install on my up to date Kubuntu was just as quick and without a hickup. :)
The 20.7MB
My first impression is, It looks just like the MS version
The fact that it's not OSS can not excite me, I ru
Re:Why US only? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Why US only? (Score:5, Insightful)
US Export restrictions.
Land of the Free, except when you try to get stuff out.
Re:"Google" software for Linux (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Doesn't work for me in Dapper (Score:2)
Re:Mac commercials (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Mac commercials (Score:2)
It's terrific that Windows and Linux users are getting decent software for photo management. Still, those who haven't used Macs don't realize how good iPhoto 6 is, or how well it integrates your photo library with your other applications (iMovie, Pages, Keynote, etc.). With Automator, you can build whole automated workflows that do stuff with your photos.
"I feel like mo
Re:Cross platform development (Score:2)
Geez... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Recommendation (Score:5, Insightful)
Google funded 225 WINE patches. How many people who won't even use Picasa will benefit from that? IMHO, that's more important than Google releasing a package that lets Picasa run on Linux.
In defense of WINE (Score:3, Interesting)
So I don't see WINE as destructive or silly.
Re:Only the winers. (Score:3, Funny)
Software developers are really in a bind with Linux. If you don't create software for Linux, Linux people whine that you are not supporting them. Create software for Linux, Linux people whine that its not open source.
I guess they didn't count on comments like yours.
"Create open source software for Linux, Linux people whine that it's not the right kind of project".
Re:Only the winers. (Score:3, Interesting)
WARNING! Dumb Joke WARNING! Amarok totally amarocks
Re:Recommendation (Score:4, Informative)
Of course, the Picasa for Linux product is far more tailored for Linux than that would be; it doesn't give you drive letters, it knows how to integrate into your file system, it knows how to connect to your desktop environment; it has a whole raft of other Linux specific features. I think it's even reasonable to hope that as it matures, it will become even more fully tailored to Linux.
But the bottom line is simple - try it. You may be surprised at how handy it is. And today you have one more application on Linux than you had yesterday. I'm not sure how anyone can be upset by that.
Cheers,
Jeremy
Re:Recommendation (Score:3, Insightful)
Why?
If this installs and runs easily on Linux, why does it matter whether it's a 'native port' or some other hoops and tricks method? If it installs and runs, the that counts as released for linux.
One of the biggest prospects for Linux's wide-scale adoption will be the ability to run programs designed for Windows. If the end result of Wine's development is that programs only need wr