if 'maturity' = senility

Story: Giving up the GIMP is a sign of Ubuntu's mainstream maturityTotal Replies: 8
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tuxchick

Nov 28, 2009
1:15 PM EDT
...then I agree.
dinotrac

Nov 28, 2009
1:17 PM EDT
Where are those "recommend" boxes when you need them?
tracyanne

Nov 28, 2009
5:49 PM EDT
It's not so much the not including the GIMP by default that I have a real issue with, it's the making fSpot the default image editor, surely there is a better choice out there.

One of the problems a couple of my people have had with fSpot, is that if you remove, or move a folder(s) that contain images that are registered with fSpot, the images remain available in fSpot thus defeating the purpose of moving or removing the folders.

DigiKam simply automatically resycs itself with the file system, so a moved or removed folder/files are gone, I'm pretty sure it simply uses the filesystem as the storage. fSpot seems to store a copy of the files/folders elsewhere, like in the database, probably in binary fields.

I dislike this behaviour, and the people I've alluded to keep asking me for something better, as they put it.

The problem I have is that fSpot seems to be the only image database system that works automagically on Ubuntu. While DigiKam is the only one that works automagically on KUbuntu.

I suppose I could spend time making something else work automagically on Ubuntu, only to have my work blown away on the next upgrade.
Sander_Marechal

Nov 28, 2009
7:59 PM EDT
F-spot is horrible for photo management, Well actually, any photo application that tries to keep it's own database is. My dad's photo collection is in ruins thanks to f-spot with a ton of duplicate photos, missing photos, dead references and what-not.
Steven_Rosenber

Nov 29, 2009
1:55 AM EDT
Sander, you are correct. It's the database and the way the application creates a (hornet's) nest of directories that leads users down the path of lock-in and, worse, breakage.

I think the reason F-Spot is held in whatever esteem it is, is that it attempts to be much like iPhoto in the Mac OS X world.

That's another application that keeps its own database and system of nested folders. And when trouble strikes, you can lose a lot of "organization," to say nothing of the images within that organizational framework.

Embedded captions and other metadata along with traditional directory organization - that's the way I'm leaning with this.

Having an application lock you in, be it with images or audio and video, is a bad thing, indeed.

I just spent $20 on a non-iPod audio player. And, miraculously I can actually use it with more than one computer and with applications that are not iTunes. And I can pull files off of it and do ... whatever I like with them.

What we really don't need is the same kind of lock-in for images that we have for audio in the proprietary world.

I seem to remember digiKam creating the same kind of nested directories that F-Spot does now. But my current digiKam app works with the directory structure I've created for it.

However, I'm still leaning toward gThumb, which doesn't mess with databases but actually does allow for quite a bit of basic photo editing, which F-Spot handles poorly.
cabreh

Nov 29, 2009
10:52 AM EDT
Yes. Somehow copying a bad idea (iPhoto) makes f-Spot a good idea. Go figure.

techiem2

Nov 29, 2009
1:19 PM EDT
Quoting:Yes. Somehow copying a bad idea (iPhoto) makes f-Spot a good idea. Go figure.


Are you implying that Apple does not always have the best ideas and implementations of them? How dare you! Just look at the perfection that is the iPod, and the iPhone, and the iMac and..uh..

*loses it and starts laughing* :P

gus3

Nov 29, 2009
4:07 PM EDT
iCant.
Steven_Rosenber

Nov 30, 2009
1:14 AM EDT
The fact that I find so refreshing an MP3 player whose storage area can be treated like a regular plug-in USB drive and which will accept audio files from any computer system and needs no specialized application to do so: It speaks to the hold that Apple has over the hardware we're paying for. "Don't use it in Linux ... don't use it on any PC but the one it's connected to right now ... " Lovely.

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