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Google Releases Picasa for Linux (Slashdot)
Slashdot has
an announcement for Google's release of
Picasa for Linux.
"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." Picasa is not open-source
software, see the
End User License Agreement for details.
(Log in to post comments)
Google Releases Picasa for Linux (Slashdot) Posted May 26, 2006 15:04 UTC (Fri) by pbardet (guest, #22762) [Link] Maybe they should ask Audacity coders how to produce multi-platform software. I guess Picasa will stay away from my desktop until it becomes native.
Google Releases Picasa for Linux (Slashdot) Posted May 26, 2006 15:27 UTC (Fri) by einstein (subscriber, #2052) [Link] I'd much rather see a native version as well - after all, f-spot does most of what picasso does anyway.
I'll check out picasa and give it a whirl, but I suspect its peecee heritage will reveal itself in awkward and irritating little quirks...
Google Releases Picasa for Linux (Slashdot) Posted May 26, 2006 15:42 UTC (Fri) by beoba (guest, #16942) [Link] I suppose one of the bonuses of working in a web services company is that you usually only have to worry about one architecture: yours.
Google Releases Picasa for Linux (Slashdot) Posted May 26, 2006 19:41 UTC (Fri) by mattdm (subscriber, #18) [Link] Well, they bought this from someone else, yeah? They may not have made some of the same decisions were it started from scratch.
Google Releases Picasa for Linux (Slashdot) Posted May 26, 2006 19:40 UTC (Fri) by mattdm (subscriber, #18) [Link] I'm guessing the answer would be "Use a multi-platform toolkit".
Google Releases Picasa for Linux (Slashdot) Posted May 27, 2006 8:00 UTC (Sat) by Arker (guest, #14205) [Link] I'm a big google fan, and I'm not going to slam them over this. They contributed a lot of work to WINE, and that's not a bad thing. But I have to say, it doesn't impress me at all when a company announces support for 'linux' but it turns out they only support a very limited subset of linux - if something runs on linux that means a lot more platforms than just linux-x86.
So, this won't run on my primary machine even if I wanted it. Which I don't believe I do. I know some people are big fans of the program (including my father, who very well may wind up using it on his linux-x86 box just because he's used to it and comfortable with it) but there's already perfectly good software for this on linux like digikam. Real software, source code, that really runs on linux, rather than an opaque binary (mushware) that only runs on a subset of linux systems. And does Picasa actually do anything that digikam doesn't?
Google Releases Picasa for Linux (Slashdot) Posted May 26, 2006 16:37 UTC (Fri) by hansl (subscriber, #5086) [Link] The real news is that Wine is able to run a modern and complexWindows app like picasa. That means it's likely that more Windows apps will run on Linux, also those that don't have native equivalents yet.
I think Wine is a very valuable means to escape from the catch that
Google Releases Picasa for Linux (Slashdot) Posted May 26, 2006 17:22 UTC (Fri) by einstein (subscriber, #2052) [Link] There is a danger of falling into the os2 trap: vendors were told that os2 could run windoze programs, so the response was that's great, no need to write for os2, we'll just make a windoze version", and the rest was history.
Wine is a neat hack, but it's important to see the big picture, that windoze apps in wine is a temporary kludge, and unacceptable as a long term strategy. Native linux apps must be written, and vendors must get familiar with the linux API, not just churn out crap for windoze and assume that's all they need to do.
Google Releases Picasa for Linux (Slashdot) Posted May 26, 2006 17:53 UTC (Fri) by hansl (subscriber, #5086) [Link]
> Wine is a neat hack, but it's important to see the big picture,
Sure, there is life after Wine. There's also life after Linux in
> Native linux apps must be written, and vendors must get familiar
Sure, and how do you expect "vendors" (don't forget most software
Google Releases Picasa for Linux (Slashdot) Posted May 26, 2006 21:03 UTC (Fri) by einstein (subscriber, #2052) [Link] >Sure, and how do you expect "vendors" (don't forget most software is written in-house) to such justify such an investment? When there are no Linux users?
no linux users?
hello? you do realize where you are posting, right?
You are asking for justification for a vendor's investment in basic linux competency? Why ask me? Either a vendor wants to be a player in the marketplace or they don't. Oracle and others figured it out some time ago.
Back to the main point - in the long run, the linux API will either get developer mindshare, or it will languish in obscurity. Depending on hand me down windows software is not a viable long term strategy. Even if we could forget about the possibility of microsoft bringing a DMCA style legal challenge against wine, do you suppose linux will ever get any truly excellent software if nobody ever writes to the linux API? Do we really want to depend on crumbs from the win32 table as a key strategy moving forward?
Google Releases Picasa for Linux (Slashdot) Posted May 26, 2006 21:22 UTC (Fri) by hansl (subscriber, #5086) [Link] > no linux users?
Exactly. My girlfriend is only a Linux user because I was able
See? It's not about Oracle. These programs will not get ported,
She *is* a Linux user (no Windows license needed), so in the end
Google Releases Picasa for Linux (Slashdot) Posted Jun 1, 2006 18:56 UTC (Thu) by kamil (subscriber, #3802) [Link] Didn't Dutch tax office release a Linux version of their software for 2005? I thought I saw it at their website...
Google Releases Picasa for Linux (Slashdot) Posted Sep 10, 2006 18:02 UTC (Sun) by Wrosmo (guest, #40426) [Link] How did you get IKEA Kitchen Planner to work with wine?
I am using IKEA KP version 2007 and wine 0.9.17 and it installs but won't run.
Google Releases Picasa for Linux (Slashdot) Posted Jun 7, 2006 9:21 UTC (Wed) by jschrod (subscriber, #1646) [Link] no linux users?Yes, but that's no reason to close the eyes in front of reality. Picassa is a desktop application for generic users, and in this target audience there are only a miniscule amount of Linux users. (Engineering applications is another matter.) That missing market makes it hard to spend the budget. Either a vendor wants to be a player in the marketplace or they don't. Oracle and others figured it out some time ago.That's a strawman, and a bad one at that. Oracle doesn't play in the generic users desktop market, that's server market. And there Linux got a foothold due to applications like netfilter, Apache, and free DBMSes, (i.e., LAMP) where no application existed with the same functionality or with an adequate price tag. After the Linux servers were already there (and because of the free DBMSes) Oracle and other ISVs decided that there is a market and one can develop for it. But that's not the case for the desktop market. There is no application in sight that is good enough that generic desktop users switch to Linux just to use it, as it was with LAMP for the servers, creating a market that's relevant enough for ISVs. Cheers, Joachim
On OS/2's win32 compatibility Posted May 26, 2006 19:51 UTC (Fri) by dank (guest, #1865) [Link] OS/2's win32 compatibility died because IBM didn't have the willpower toimplement or maintain win32 compatibility themselves, and because their win32 layer wasn't open source and thus couldn't be maintained by the users. (The Odin project was open source, but it came along too late to save OS/2.)
Wine does not suffer from that problem. There is nothing standing
Google Releases Picasa for Linux (Slashdot) Posted May 26, 2006 20:02 UTC (Fri) by iabervon (subscriber, #722) [Link] OS/2 would have done fine without any native development if there had been an easy way for users to end up running Windows programs on OS/2 systems. But nobody was selling machines that would default to booting OS/2, not even IBM. If Wine on Linux were a better Windows than Windows, and were cheaper, and had better driver support in the OS install, people would end up using Wine on Linux, and then vendors would have to compete for these users with native Linux applications, which get the advantage of integrating with the underlying system.
Furthermore, Linux doesn't need more vendor support than it currently has to be viable (since it's been doing fine for years), whereas OS/2 really needed additional adoption right then.
Google Releases Picasa for Linux (Slashdot) Posted Jun 4, 2006 12:03 UTC (Sun) by kreutzm (guest, #4700) [Link] Actually a large computer chain here in Germany sold OS/2 machines quite succesfully. Rumours are that IBM killed it themselfs because they wanted to phase out OS/2 from the general marketplace.
Google Releases Picasa for Linux (Slashdot) Posted May 26, 2006 18:08 UTC (Fri) by tjc (subscriber, #137) [Link] The real news is that Wine is able to run a modern and complex Windows app like picasa. That means it's likely that more Windows apps will run on Linux, also those that don't have native equivalents yet.In this particular case it was the developers of the original application who were porting it to wine, so they had the option of changing the application itself to work with (or work around the limitations of) wine as necessary. I don't really see this as being very big news.
Google Releases Picasa for Linux (Slashdot) Posted May 26, 2006 18:18 UTC (Fri) by hansl (subscriber, #5086) [Link] > In this particular case it was the developers of the original> application who were porting it to wine, so they had the option > of changing the application itself to work with (or work around > the limitations of) wine as necessary.
That's not entirely true, CodeWeavers did the heavy lifting. 225
http://code.google.com/wine.html
Google Releases Picasa for Linux (Slashdot) Posted May 26, 2006 22:11 UTC (Fri) by tjc (subscriber, #137) [Link] Oh, well that is a *bit* more impressive then. But I'm still able to contain my excitement over the whole thing. :)
Wine future Posted May 27, 2006 4:11 UTC (Sat) by ncm (subscriber, #165) [Link] There's only one thing I'd care to see work on Wine: the Magic Schoolbus educational series.
Wine future Posted May 29, 2006 5:51 UTC (Mon) by jasonspiro (guest, #38047) [Link] Did you try it already?
There may be more tips you need to know, such as installing native DLLs or making other changes using the winecfg tool. Ask on Freenode channel #winehq or on the mailing list where they'll be glad to help you. They can also tell you if you should file a bug report or not. And I'm sure patches are welcome. :-) With your help, Wine can be made better for everyone.
Obligatory Posted May 26, 2006 17:32 UTC (Fri) by yodermk (subscriber, #3803) [Link] Fine, but when do we see Google Earth? Probably safe to say that's the only Google desktop app that most of us care about. It is, in fact, one of the factors that led me to get a Mac laptop over Linux.
Yes, I've tried Earth3D, but it's completely useless compared to Google Earth. Slow as molassas (every time I do *anything* I wait for minutes for it to render), and not nearly as much detail.
Obligatory Posted May 26, 2006 17:58 UTC (Fri) by hansl (subscriber, #5086) [Link] They're working on it:
http://www.linuxtoday.com/infrastructure/2006052601826NWSWRL
> When asked if the additions to WINE would bootstrap Google Earth's
Obligatory Posted May 26, 2006 23:27 UTC (Fri) by zdzichu (subscriber, #17118) [Link] WTF? Qt is multiplatform by definition. It should be actually faster to recompile and fix simple incompatibilities than use WINE.
Obligatory Posted May 27, 2006 0:29 UTC (Sat) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] Not really. WINE means you can run your software "as is" - without any recompilation or modification. Just fix few bugs in WINE. QT & GL means eventually you'll get native application but meanwhile you need to remove all Windows-dependences from code. And this can be long story if application was not developed with portability in mind.
Obligatory Posted May 27, 2006 14:10 UTC (Sat) by jamesh (guest, #1159) [Link] You seem to be agreeing with Chris DiBona's quote. That is, additional fixes to WINE would not help with porting Google Earth to Linux because the app uses Qt.
Obligatory Posted May 27, 2006 14:30 UTC (Sat) by Sho (subscriber, #8956) [Link] Unfortunately it appears as if Google Earth will indeed be another WINE-based "port", despite Google Earth using cross-platform libraries like Qt and expat. Quoting the Wine Newsletter:
"Interestingly, Google Earth is suffering from an OpenGL and Wine windowing problem that's a showstopper for a ton of other programs. It's a regression in Wine that dates back about a year ago to when window management code was modified to perform better. There should be some nice collateral damage from fixing that bug. You might be able to get a sneak preview of Google Earth on Linux if you start tracking CVS."
Source: http://www.winehq.com/?issue=314
I have no idea what they're smoking.
Obligatory Posted May 27, 2006 15:24 UTC (Sat) by hansl (subscriber, #5086) [Link] What's wrong with using Wine? It's the fastest and cheapestway to port a Windows app to Linux, and if you use Winelib you can gradually replace Windows dependencies by Unix dependencies (say, library by library), eventually eliminating the need for Wine(lib).
What's wrong with that?
Obligatory Posted May 31, 2006 3:47 UTC (Wed) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] But if you are ALREADY using cross-platfrom toolkit (Qt) and a lot of tools from free software word (try strings on windows's GoogleEarth) then surely it's better to spend little more time to create native port. Usage of Windows version of Qt with winelib just looks sooo wrong... surely Google is not stupid enough to go this way ?
Obligatory Posted May 27, 2006 18:57 UTC (Sat) by allesfresser (subscriber, #216) [Link] If Google Earth is a Wine-based application, then how does the Mac version work? Unless Google has managed to port Wine to powerpc code, which would be an impressive feat in itself...
Obligatory Posted May 28, 2006 9:41 UTC (Sun) by LetterRip (guest, #6816) [Link] If they are using winelib, then they can recompile to winelib.
winelib has been ported to OS X, but not sure how well it works.
LetterRip
Chris was trying to say... Posted May 30, 2006 1:08 UTC (Tue) by dank (guest, #1865) [Link] ... that Google Earth will be a native port, not a Wineport. The Wine weekly news folks are incorrect in assuming that Google Earth will use Wine.
Chris was trying to say... Posted Jun 1, 2006 14:44 UTC (Thu) by vinn (guest, #23971) [Link] "the Wine weekly news folks".. that would be me, Dan. Wanna share some details on wine-devel? Will it use Wine at all?
Regarding Picasa and simply recompiling it, you can't. Maybe the front-end has some cross-platform code, but the backend clearly relies on Win32 API's, including MSHTML.
Obligatory Posted May 26, 2006 19:54 UTC (Fri) by sb (subscriber, #191) [Link] Have a look at ww2d:
http://ww2d.csoft.net/index.php?title=Introduction
There's some pretty detailed imagery for the US (especially urban areas), so-so elsewhere.
Google Releases Picasa for Linux (Slashdot) Posted May 28, 2006 20:42 UTC (Sun) by XERC (guest, #14626) [Link] Text from the article:"... and since we're still learning on how to bestmake software for Linux,..." The answer is very simple: OPEN SOURCE IT UNDER OSI APPROVED LICENSE!!!
Google Releases Picasa for Linux (Slashdot) Posted May 28, 2006 21:53 UTC (Sun) by jengelh (subscriber, #33263) [Link] What's more, they should make it an open project. Volunteers can work on it, and Google does not need to invest $$ for the development, just for the maps. Of course this also means there won't be any spyware, ads or whatever that Google currently (if applies) relies on.
Google Releases Picasa for Linux (Slashdot) Posted May 28, 2006 23:13 UTC (Sun) by Arker (guest, #14205) [Link] They do ads, but no spyware.
They probably can't free Picasa, due to not actually owning all of it.
Still, it's a loss-leader for them, they give it away to build goodwill essentially.
Frankly I think they would have been better off saving the money they spent on it, and just doing a windows port of digikam. They probably could have added any features it might lack much cheaper than going the route they have.
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