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."

Files available in US only (apparantly)

So, use coral as your proxy :)

http://picasa.google.com.nyud.net:8080/linux/ [nyud.net]
http://picasa.google.com.nyud.net:8080/linux/faq.h tml [nyud.net]

Chris, looks good so far, big thanks.

Re:MOD PARENT DOWN!!! (apparantly)

He was referring to that the rest of the world can't download the product unless they use a proxy.

wow

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.

Re:wow

It's okay, we've already got plenty of pre-beta software. Have you seen SourceForge lately? Thanks. :o)

Re:wow

Actually, I found f-spot very, very nice. It rivals picassa in some areas and really fills in the gap on the linux side. I'm glad picassa is out, but I'll probably stick with f-spot.

http://f-spot.org/Main_Page [f-spot.org]

Re:wow

According to Brian Proffitt on Linux Today [linuxtoday.com], when asked if additions to WINE could help porting Google Earth, DiBona said that Google Earth uses Qt and GL and so additional WINE support would not help.

Re:wow

Using wine to run windows software is NOT porting apps.

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!

First of all, http://picasa.google.com/linux/faq.html [google.com] doesn't exist.

Didn't really get any further than that.

Fixed in CVS

It's been fixed in CVS [slashdot.org].

not free

Nice that you can use Picasa with Wine under Linux. But it is no free software (GPL, BSD or open source).

No source code.

Re:not free

And while we're at it. There is a free alternative [digikam.org]. It has even got all the spiffy KDE features like ioslaves and so on at its hands. Plus all the cameras supported that gphoto2 has.

Re:not free

Don't forget about F-Spot [f-spot.org] for us GNOME users.

Re:not free

Don't forget about F-Spot for us GNOME users.

No thanks... I'd rather wait a while till the product reaches the G-Spot!

Re:not free

From TFA, http://picasa.google.com/linux/faq.html [google.com]:

Q: Why doesn't sound play during the slideshow?

For licensing reasons, we were concerned about distributing code to play MP3 files.

In a future release, however, we hope to provide an interface for you to select your own MP3-playing software.

Fuck MP3, then. Use Vorbis, which is Free of royalties, patents, etc.

Q: Why are movie files so big?

Due to licensing issues with movie codecs, we can't include a motion-compressing codec for making movies. As a result, we can only produce movies that are uncompressed.

If you can obtain a license to use a better codec on your Linux system, we recommend that you use that licensed software to compress the resulting movie files; they should drastically drop in size with any such codec.

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

Typical Linux whine.

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

It should further be noted that Google in the process of porting Picasa to Linux participated in committing a number of patches back into the Wine source, as can be seen here [google.com].

Re:not free

Typical Linux whine. 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.

Actually, it sounds like there should be enough to even stop the latter from moaning. According to the WINE home page:

Google just released Picasa for Linux. .... Interestingly, there's some technical details available about how the Linux version came to be. The port was done using Wine and in the process over 200 patches were contributed back to the Wine project.

Re:not free

The port was done using Wine and in the process over 200 patches were contributed back to the Wine project.

This is impossible. Steve Ballmer just told me that if a company touches something open source, like Wine, then all their software must be open source. Thats the way The License works, he said.

Re:not free

Limiting yourself to open source limits your choices.

Many of us care about the freedom that comes with free software. Compare with free speech and free press. In the long run, it's really non-free software that limits ones choices. Compare again with free speech in this example:

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

Limiting yourself to open source limits your choices.

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.

Glorious

Step 1 - announce software
Step 2 - make all your links to software dead
Step 3 - Profit?

Google slashdotted?

Is it me or has Gooogle disappeared? Wouldn't have thought that the 3 linux users starting a download could have caused that... :-)

First impressions

Well it works.... just like the Windows version. With the exception of slightly crummy looking fonts in the menus, the interface is quite slick and near-identical to the original, and appears to be as fast and slick as the original. Nice job.

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

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...

Works in Gentoo

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...

Regarding the open source complaints...

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.

Possible motive?

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?
-

Offtopic, but it must be said.

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.

don't forget to read this ;)

it's quite interesting
http://www.winehq.com/pipermail/wine-devel/2006-Ma y/047806.html [winehq.com]

Eeep!

Well this is [tinypic.com] one of the scariest things i've ever had to witness on my process list in recent times...

Where's the love? Give Google a break :/

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!

Poorly designed

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!

Re:Why US only?

You can get the binaries directly (regardless of location) from these links:

Deb: http://dl.google.com/linux/deb/pool/non-free/p/pic asa/picasa_2.2.2820-5_i386.deb [google.com]

RPM: http://dl.google.com/linux/rpm/stable/i386/picasa- 2.2.2820-5.i386.rpm [google.com]

Binary installer: http://dl.google.com/linux/standalone/picasa-2.2.2 820-5.i386.bin [google.com]

Re:Why US only?

Maybe because it's a pre-beta software ? I don't know but I downloaded the coral cached link instead of bitching ;)

Re:Why US only?

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.

It's NOT "fairly standard", it's for LINUX!

Why announce a fairly standard application on /.?

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...

This is, to my knowledge, the first desktop application for Linux from Google. In the past, they were often criticised for using Linux on their servers and otherwise supporting it, but not providing Linux ports of their own applications - just check any pa

Re:All very well, but...

Why announce a fairly standard application on /.? Surely Freshmeat would be a better forum?

Because it's from GOOGLE.

Slashdot:
News about Google. Stuff about Google that matters. Google, Google. Google.

Everyone has missed the "real" announcement here

I don't get it. Why announce a fairly standard application on /.?

This announcement has very little to do with Picassa.

Read between the lines (or even one particular line, explicitly):

"We hope our patches to Wine will help make it easier for everyone to run Windows apps on Linux and other Unix-like systems."

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.

Re:suprise?

libgphoto [gphoto.org] is an OSS library for interfacing with digital cameras. Marcus Meissner [www.lst.de] 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.

Re:suprise?

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 camer

Re:suprise?

Many digital cameras do not support a mass storage mode as you describe and can only operate using the Picture Transfer Protocol (PTP) [wikipedia.org], 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.

Re:suprise?

There are cameras that do not support Mass Storage. Notably the Canon cameras for instance (PowerShot, Digital IXUS, et.al.) and others.

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

Re:"Google" software for Linux

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?

Re:story title wrong.

Wine is an implementation of the Windows API. It is not an emulator of any kind. It enables code written using it to run natively on non-Microsoft platforms. By extension of your logic it would seem that any application written using a library "intended" for use in the Linux world (such as Gaim and GTK+) cannot be considered "native" to Windows when ported to it, but this is clearly not the case. Using Wine may not be the nicest way to develop an application from the ground-up for Linux, but if it works, it works. What Google has released is indeed a native Linux application. Furthermore they have obviously made an extensive effort to improve both the code of Picasa and of Wine [google.com] to address any bugs in Wine that might have resulted in poor performance.

Re:What are you smoking?

From your comments I would venture you have not. It is extremely well-polished and as stable as the Windows version.

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 /var/opt/picasa with permissions 1777, and Picasa will use a subdirectory of that instead of ~/.picasa. See the comments in /opt/picasa/bin/wrapper.
# 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?

The app does not "run under wine". It links against WineLib. Big sh*t.

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

Many people assume that when porting a Windows app to Linux
using Wine, the best thing to do is link Winelib into the
application to create a native Linux application. Not so!
It's just as effective, and a heck of a lot easier, to run
the same binary on both Windows and Wine. So that's what the
Picasa team did. Picasa for Linux uses slightly different
text messages, but the .exe file is identical for both Windows
and Linux.

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?

Let's see...
Windows version
md5sum Picasa.exe:
b8806a095619d3327e7e415af8b72d48 *Picasa2.exe

Linux version
md5sum /opt/picasa/wine/drive_c/Program\ Files/Picasa2/Picasa2.exe
b8806a095619d3327e7e415af8b72d48 /opt/picasa/wine/drive_c/Program Files/Picasa2/Picasa2.exe

Yeah, its pretty much the same.

Re:Recommendation

If this runs using wine internally, then couldn't we have run Picasa using Wine before anyway?

Apparently not, since it took 225 WINE patches to get things working.

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.

Re:Recommendation

Well, now that Google has sponsored so much work on Wine, yes you can just use Wine to run Picasa, and that will work very nicely.

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