Google’s Picasa Digital Photo Organizer Arrives on Linux
By Alexander Grundner |
May 26th, 2006
(0) Comments
The kind folks at Google have ported one of their most popular Windows freeware apps, Picasa, to Linux (via Ubuntu Blog). I just downloaded the .deb version for installation on my Ubuntu system and everything appears to be working flawlessly. All functions like image import (including images from network drives) and image editing/labeling/redeye reduction/effect/slideshow/etc. are fully functional and respond quickly. Nice to see Google’s commitment to alternative platforms.
Picasa packages are ready for download in the following formats:
- Free Download (.rpm) – for Red Hat/Fedora/Suse/Mandriva x86
- Free Download (.deb) – for Debian/Ubuntu x86
- Free Download (.bin) – Self-extracting installer, for any x86 Linux distribution
Interesting side note about Picasa’s Linux implementation from Google:
So, how does it work? Picasa for Linux runs the current Windows version of Picasa using a carefully tested version of Wine, an open-source implementation of the Windows application-programming interface (API). Wine runs on top of the X Window System and Linux or Unix. But it’s not a Windows emulator; instead, it provides a Windows API middleware layer that enables Windows programs to run on Linux without the slowing effects of OS emulation or a virtual machine.
To allow Picasa to run well on Linux, Google made a few improvements to Wine. Some of the changes were Picasa-specific and simply added a bit of polish. (They probably won’t be of use to other applications, and may not be needed in future versions of Picasa, either.) None of the changes were proprietary to Google, and all have been contributed to the Wine project. The source for all the changes is available at http://code.google.com/wine.html.
Filed in: Software