Google releases Picasa for Linux

Google has just released a Linux version of Picasa, its free to download photo software, via Google Labs. Picasa offers basic editing, sharing, organizing and publishing of photos. Google acquired the photo management company in 2004.

Google has made three different package managers for Linux download: Red Hat/Fedora/Suse/Mandriva x86; Debian/Ubuntu x86; and a self-extracting installer for any x86 Linux distribution. Google says that testing has confirmed Picasa will support Debian Sarge and Etch, Fedora Core 4 and 5, Linspire 5, Mandriva 2006 and 2005, Red Hat Workstation 3 and Workstation, Ubuntu 5.10 (Breezy Badger), and SuSE 9.3 and 10.0.

[Heebee Jeebies]

Well now we know...

Why there hasn't been a major update to Picasa for Windows. They have been wasting there time with a Linux version. What they feel that Linux needed a version. That is just stupid, Linux for consumers has fewer users than the Mac. If they wanted to put out support for new OS it should have been the Mac and not for an OS that is going no place in the consumer market. I guess IT administrators were really desperate for it.

Well, now all of you can join the waiting club. The chances are the Linux version will get the same lame update schedule. Hell, they can't even manage to keep up with RAW file support let alone fixing the major short comings in the program.

Time to find something else. Google can play their lame games. I am tired of waiting.

R

[J.G.]

Supporting Linux will be regretted

I agree with the commenter who said that the decision to
support Linux is a mistake. It is arbitrary and capricious. The
tiny non-server Linux population that will use the new Linux
Picasa is not the demographic interested in web photo albums.
They're mainly programmers. So, Google will now spend a lot
of time maintaining a little used port of Picasa.

On the other hand, Mac users, a growing group, do use web
photo albums. So, it would have made better sense to port to
OS X.

Until a few years ago Picasa was retail software. I would get free
copies whenever I bought a new digital camera, and, preferring
to use Mac for photo handling, pass it on to Windows users.