[PLUG] Picasa replacement?

[JP Vossen <jp@jpsdomain.org>]

Like much of Google, I have a love/hate relationship with Picasa.  It 
looks and works great, but it's a nightmare to administer, like when 
changing hardware/OS/username as I did for my wife recently.  She was 
running v3.0 beta on Hardy 32-bit and is now running the same v.3.0 beta 
on Lucid 64-bit on a new machine, with a different user name.

Picasa for "Linux" is really just Picasa for Windows with just enough 
wine wrapped around it to work, which is annoying.  I wonder if Google 
will really ban Windows like they said [1], and if so what that'll mean 
for native Linux apps.  But anyway...


Any recommendations on a Picasa replacement?  It must be in the Lucid 
repos or have a PPA or third-party Lucid repo.  (So running the regular 
Windows Picasa under regular Wine doesn't count.)


We are pretty low-end users with only a few thousand pics but they are 
hosted on the file server, not the local drive and I want them to stay 
that way.  She wants a fast viewer, albums (not related to physical 
directory), basic tweaking features (e.g., red-eye, "I'm feeling lucky," 
etc.), and uploads to Snapfish, Facebook, etc.  I'd like something that 
works well when the picture files are on the file server (bonus points 
for working well over slow links though I won't hold my breath), and 
isn't too hard to migrate out of if needed (both things Picasa is 
particularly bad at).


Digikam looks pretty good, but it is a KDE app and I run Gnome.  It's 
the best of the lot I'm aware of, and I may give it a try if no one has 
anything better...  Like Picasa, it wants to keep its own DB (sqlite) on 
the *local* drive (network drives not allowed), but unlike Picasa you 
can configure where, and it'll also "export" meta data into the picture 
file, which is actually pretty cool.

I've looked at F-Spot, but it seems primitive, and I've seen reports of 
it wanting to move things around on disk and so forth.

Shotwell [2] looks promising, but the one in the Lucid repos is even 
more primitive than F-Spot.

## Haven't really looked at these yet
ansel1 - Horde photo management application
flphoto - Image manager with great printing functionality

## These are interesting, but don't actually address the specific 
need/problem, they are additional tools.
fotowall - simple application for creating collages and compositions
fotoxx - easy-to-use digital photo editor


Thanks,
JP

[1] 
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/d2f3f04e-6ccf-11df-91c8-00144feab49a,dwp_uuid=9a36c1aa-3016-11da-ba9f-00000e2511c8,print=yes.html
[2] 
http://linux.slashdot.org/story/10/06/14/0055221/Ubuntu-Replaces-F-Spot-With-Shotwell
----------------------------|:::======|-------------------------------
JP Vossen, CISSP            |:::======|      http://bashcookbook.com/
My Account, My Opinions     |=========|      http://www.jpsdomain.org/
----------------------------|=========|-------------------------------
"Microsoft Tax" = the additional hardware & yearly fees for the add-on
software required to protect Windows from its own poorly designed and
implemented self, while the overhead incidentally flattens Moore's Law.
___________________________________________________________________________
Philadelphia Linux Users Group         --        http://www.phillylinux.org
Announcements - http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-announce
General Discussion  --   http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug