Linux and Digital Photo Management

I started using linux about a year ago and slowly began moving over from using Windows software. If you don't know anything about linux, have a look at this intro from IBM and check out the Distrowatch site for the range of linux "flavours".

Basically, linux is an operating system that's designed to function like Unix but run on consumer PC hardware. It picked up speed in the early 1990's when a software developer named Linus Torvalds came up with the Linux Kernel. The same people who developed the original web browser that eventually became Netscape also got involved and the anti-windows movement began as software geeks began to hate paying high pricess for the microsoft software. You can read about it here and/or watch a movie called "Revolution OS" that talks about the whole story (it isn't all that exciting to watch, but is informative if you like documentaries).

Incidentally, Apple's Mac OS X is based on a similar unix-like operating system called Darwin, which based on something called FreeBSD.

Anyways, the big deal about linux is that it is open source and free. Almost all the distributions on distrowatch are completely free and are readily available for download. Some distros have bootable live cds which you can use to try out the software on your computer without installing anything. It runs from the cd/dvd drive and loads into your RAM memory and leaves your hard drive untouched. After you're done with it you can run your computer as usual. They run on both pc and apple hardware. Viruses aren't much of a problem either since the operating system is more secure in general and the there isn't much of an anti-linux cult of hackers out there tying to bring down a massive corporation.

It's a big topic and I don't want to get into it too much, but there are also different desktop environments like KDE, Gnome, and XFCE. You can read about them yourselves...just google them and you'll get their websites. Have a look at screenshots here, here, and here. I used to use Gnome, but switch to KDE because it seemd to run better to me. XFCE runs well on old machines that used to run Windows 98...I have it running on an old Pentium laptop that I use for web browsing in the living room.

In terms of digital photo mangement, there is a KDE application called Gwenview that I found pretty useful in going through my many pictures. You can browse through your pictures pretty easily and do some quick editing on the fly like rotating, flipping, and mirrorring. There are plugins available that also allow you to do batch operations like resizing, converting, renaming, and applying some image effects. Very usefull when you have a ton of images to process !

There is also an opensource photoshop package called Gimp. Although it's not as slick as Adobe Photoshop, it's pretty good for most people...especially because it's free. There are packages for installing it in Windows and Mac OS X too.

It takes a while to get to know how to use the software, but since it's an opensource project, there are lots of sources on the web for tutorials and help on how to use it. Once source is the Gimpology site where you can learn how to add some neat effects to your pictures like this one about tilt-shift photos like these and these.

The entire opensource and linux movement is kind of a neat phenomenon. It's got a lot of steam in places like Brazil and India where people want access to technology without having to pay a 3 months' wages to pay for a license. Governments are starting to look into it as well.

Personally I use Kubuntu. I've gotten used to how it works and so I've stuck with it. A really good one to look at the is OpenSuse project. Try to download the live dvd first to try it out, although if you don't have broadband it will take a long time.