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Google Releases Picasa for Linux
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."
So, use coral as your proxy :)
h tml
http://picasa.google.com.nyud.net:8080/linux/
http://picasa.google.com.nyud.net:8080/linux/faq.
Chris, looks good so far, big thanks.
liqbase
This is the kind of quality software that linux desperately lacks. It is interesting how wine was used here. I wonder if this will lead to the porting of other google apps like google earth.
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
First of all, http://picasa.google.com/linux/faq.html doesn't exist.
Didn't really get any further than that.
We do not live in the 21st century. We live in the 20 second century.
No source code.
I don't get it. Why announce a fairly standard application on /.? Surely Freshmeat would be a better forum? And the other stuff about reporting bugs and submitting updates to other FOSS projects is hardly new, either.
Don't get me wrong - I'm always happy to see new contributions to the cause, but this makes me a bit uneasy, somehow.
Step 1 - announce software
Step 2 - make all your links to software dead
Step 3 - Profit?
You can get the binaries directly (regardless of location) from these links:
c asa/picasa_2.2.2820-5_i386.deb
- 2.2.2820-5.i386.rpm
2 820-5.i386.bin
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.
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.
ttuttle is a rankmaniac
He was referring to that the rest of the world can't download the product unless they use a proxy.
Maybe because it's a pre-beta software ? I don't know but I downloaded the coral cached link instead of bitching ;)
libgphoto is an OSS library for interfacing with digital cameras. Marcus Meissner is a major Wine developer. Presumably, he wrote a patch that integrates libgphoto with Wine, thus enabling Picassa to download photos from digital cameras - a neccessary feature that would not have otherwise been available as part of the Wine API.
It might be faster to use the correct link where you are, but considering how I get:
/linux/faq.html was not found on this server.
404 Not Found
Error
Not Found
The requested URL
and the comments in the google groups 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.
liqbase
Should read Google releases Picasa that runs under wine.
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 well Corel Draw ran after they slightly rewrote it so it ran better under wine and then statically linked it to wine and released a "linux version".
No thanks.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Is it me or has Gooogle disappeared? Wouldn't have thought that the 3 linux users starting a download could have caused that... :-)
What kind of info does this upload to google?
Wine is not emulation. Its an API. Its no different then any other linux app. No different then chosing QT over GTK or any thing else. Whats wrong with coding to a cross platform library?
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.
I though Picasa was written in QT... so porting it to linux it was supposed to be an easy task.
Using my excessively-modified Gentoo install, with the Ion window manager, it works perfectly...don't know what everyone else is complaining about.
And before someone says something, no, I didn't try to compile it from source...
Do you people honestly think that any Google software will be released as open source? Even their Firefox extensions aren't open source! They're relatively good about contributing back to existing open source projects, but I don't know of a single novel application they've written and then released as OSS. If you're not going to use any non-open software, don't download stuff from Google.
Have you heard of a little app called iPhoto?
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 someone who has worked with WineLib, I can tell you this is no easy task. They have obviously spent a good deal of time on this. Then people like you go and rant on them some more? And you wonder why hardly any companies even go to the trouble of releasing Linux versions of software.
Do you have any idea how many hundreds of thousands of dollars in man-hours and effort it would cost them to re-write every single portion of Picassa using Glib/GTK or QT?
Go back to sleep.
Presumably, he wrote a patch that integrates libgphoto with Wine, thus enabling Picassa to download photos from digital cameras - a neccessary feature that would not have otherwise been available as part of the Wine API.
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.
Why is Google all of a sudden releasing programs for desktops? Despite MS attitude towards them, Google actually seems to promote the 'Windows World View' of all things computing.
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?
-
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
Lots of cameras use PTP, 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.
Thank you Google and CodeWeavers.
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.
Google did this kind of thing when they launched Google Video too. Does anyone know why it excludes the rest of the world when launching new sites? It's the only company I personally know that has web pages that only work in certain countries.
Some cameras (like the Kodak Z740 that I use) use PTP for uploading pictures rather than USB mass storage. You need GPhoto in order to access the pictures from these sorts of cameras.
I'm in Canada and I had no problems downloading it.
Not so. A minority (Sonys, mostly) are USB-storage, the rest are mostly PTP, which requires an app like gphoto2 to extract your pictures from the camera. Having had one of each type, my opinion is that USB-storage is good and PTP sucks dead donkeys through a straw. (It is not just gphoto2 either: dealing with a full PTP camera from WinXP was painful the one time I tried.) However one rarely chooses a digital camera based on whether it is PTP or USB-storage.
Would you like some Picasa with that whine?
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.
it's quite interestinga y/047806.html
http://www.winehq.com/pipermail/wine-devel/2006-M
Why is the Linux version restricted to the US only?
US Export restrictions.
Land of the Free, except when you try to get stuff out.
May the Maths Be with you!
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
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 written once and then can either use a customised Wine to run under Linux, or slot into a supported, pre-installed and easy to use version of Wine (like Crossover Office or Cadega), then that counts as a better conclusion in terms of getting all vital software running on Linux than requiring a complete re-write of every app we want which, let's face it, will never happen.
I've used Linux for over 2 years as my primary operating system. 2 months ago, I installed Microsoft Office via Crossover Office. It works as well as under Windows, installed as easily as under Windows thanks to Crossover's fine work, and has given me no problems. Although I still use Openoffice for most things, I have software in Access that I am currently porting to an Apache/PHP/MySQL system to which I need access from Linux. Plus, compared to 'Impress', Powerpoint is a breath of fresh air in terms of usability.
Wine provides the promise to be able to run any software on Linux. Where's the problem when companies like Google take advantage of that to release software they wouldn't otherwise have the time or manpower to re-write?
Is crushing a suspect's child's testicles illegal?
John Yoo: "No, [if] the President thinks he needs to do that."
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.
Many digital cameras do not support a mass storage mode as you describe and can only operate using the Picture Transfer Protocol (PTP), which also supports some more advanced features like remote-shooting (but Picasa doesn't support any of those). For this reason, libgphoto is very useful for Picasa because it provides the PTP communication layer that enables support for a much wider array of cameras.
It's been fixed in CVS.
Well this is one of the scariest things i've ever had to witness on my process list in recent times...
A lot of applications don't really integrate well into the desktop, there's not much new about that. But people still use them. They all have to use their own widgets. QuickTime, MSOffice, WinAMP, MusicMatch JukeBox, Windows Media Player... even PhotoShop doesn't integrate well in Windows, FireFox struggles to integrate well with desktop environments other than Gnome (but is doing a better job than most cross-platform apps), etc...
Twinstiq, game news
What is this need for special software for "managing my photos", anyways?
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?
It might be just over the average slashdotters head, or at least a little more than their personal experience would allow for.
Hope you get mod points and all
(actually, I'm the one karma whoring...)
2^3 * 31 * 647
Google have no obligations to the Linux/OSS communities, period. The fact that they've invested so much time, money and effort into not only their own Linux app, but also back to the Wine community should be applauded. Nobody is forcing you to use this. Don't like the way they've done it? Don't use it.
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!
This space for rent.
I am not impressed. I installed this thing and it tells me that my pictures are located in Y:\pics instead of ~/pics. Also, it is too stupid to realize that the simlink on the desktop is the same directory and it indexes everything twice. Stupid!
Damage control.
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.
Nathan's blog
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
WINE is what lets me run Linux on my work computer. I can run the one legacy application I really need, and use native Linux applications for everything else. If WINE didn't exist, I'd be stuck on XP.
So I don't see WINE as destructive or silly.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
Someone else just posted:
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".
WARNING! Dumb Joke WARNING! Amarok totally amarocks
A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices. -- William James
This is the real importance of the announcement, IMHO.
Remember, WINE is not an emulator. It's a reimplementation of the Windows API (i.e. a "clone"). As such, it's only as good as its weakest component and while WINE is quite good at a lot of programs, there's still a good deal missing.
The reason WINE is so important is two-fold. One, it's another attack vector and if you want to fight the Microsoft monoculture, you need all the attack vectors you can get. Two, it allows more people to switch to linux, even if a mission-critical application isn't natively available. Personally, I would have a really hard time without VirtualDub and despite being FOSS, there's no Linux version and no plan for one (and, no, I don't have the time - and probably the skills - to do it myself).
That said, I don't understand why Google did it this way. It would be so much easier to make a Linux version from scratch (using Qt or GTK+). Don't get me wrong, I'm happy they are doing it this way. I think massive improvements to WINE and the added focus on it are much more valuable than having a Linux native version of Picassa (which really only adds a bit of polish to already existing Linux applications).
Google did this kind of thing when they launched Google Video too. Does anyone know why it excludes the rest of the world when launching new sites? It's the only company I personally know that has web pages that only work in certain countries.
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?
Picasa Linux version also in Europe
Have you got your LWN subscription yet?
He was referring to that the rest of the world can't download the product unless they use a proxy
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?
Picasa Linux version also in Europe
Have you got your LWN subscription yet?
They actually use the Windows binary instead of linking with winelib.
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.