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NickT

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About 9 years ago I bought a new computer as my general purpose desktop machine; it came preloaded with Windows Vista as an OS and I used it for browsing, e-mail negative scanning on my Minolta Scan Dual II and document scanning with a Canon LIDE35. I used the free version of Vuescan for negatives/slides and the Windows Canoscan application for the LIDE35.

Vista was a turkey of an OS from the very start and is not now supported for many applications like Firefox and Norton anti-virus. As I'm technically competent with software and hardware and components like hard drives with moving parts, DVD drives that fit in bays and memory in an old format of stick, can be had for buttons, I added another hard drive, 2nd DVD reader/writer and 3GB of memory for very little money. I then put Linux (Ubuntu) on the new-to-me hard drive and am more than happy with the improvement over Vista. Everything is free and open source. I was happy to pay the upgrade fee for Vuescan Professional and it works just as well as the Windows version I was used to.

The one thing I miss from the Windows setup is that I used to use Picasa as the quick and dirty Photoshop. It cropped, straightened, retouched and exported to a selection of sizes for my negative scans. InLinux there is no such equivalent. GIMP will do the job but has so may buttons, sliders and bells and whistles, it's not quick to use. The default image viewer in Linux and Shotwell aren't as powerful as Picasa, so does anyone know of a mid-range equivalent for Linux?

The Canoscan Windows software which came on a CD/DVD had no Linux application. I liked Canoscan as it did a quick preview and automatically suggested a cropped area to scan at hi-res, which was great if I'd put a postcard size photo on the document scanner. Xsane and Simple-Scanner are the two application I can use to scan under Linux but both scan the whole A4 size area to stat with.The simple scanner does at least have a crop tool to cut down the image before saving to disk. Can anyone suggest a Linux application which does something to Canoscan?
 
...and you do not want to upgrade to Win 10 or even Win 8.1 but want to stay with Ubantu?
 
NickT said:
The default image viewer in Linux and Shotwell aren't as powerful as Picasa, so does anyone know of a mid-range equivalent for Linux?
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Many people rate Darktable. Open source and available for many Linux distros.
 
Yes try Darktable or Digikam.
 
Harlequin565 said:
Many people rate Darktable. Open source and available for many Linux distros.
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bulldog5988 said:
Yes try Darktable or Digikam.
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Thank you both for suggesting darktable. I installed it, tried it, didn't like it and uninstalled it. It's more fully featured than the built in image viewer and Shotwell but not as powerful as gimp. I'm really looking for something middle range, with just the crop, 'I feel lucky' , retouch and scale tools like Picasa had. For the really powerful stuff like making buildings look vertical like tilt back cameras do, there is gimp, once you've spent half an hour reading the manual..
 
NickT said:
No, certainly not. Anyone with a background in computing and electronics who chose to buy a less versatile operating system over a free one, would be a certifiable idiot.
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erm well just thought you were interested in the photography side as programs like Photoshop work better in win 10 (and probably many other programs that are available) and there is nothing stopping you having dual boot.
 
excalibur2 said:
erm well just thought you were interested in the photography side as programs like Photoshop work better in win 10 (and probably many other programs that are available) and there is nothing stopping you having dual boot.
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Dual boot is what I am thinking of too, or perhaps even windows inside virtual box if it is viable with all the colour management side of things... For general p***ing about and shopping I want linux all the way.
 
Retune said:

Google Picasa 3.9 - Supported software - PlayOnLinux - Run your Windows applications on Linux easily!

PlayOnLinux will allow you to play your favorite games on Linux easily
www.playonlinux.com www.playonlinux.com
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Unfortunately, this application needs Wine to be installed first. Wine is a compatibility layer that allows Windows programs to run on Linux; it also allows malware to land on the host machine. It is generally accepted as a security risk and I will not be installing it on my machine. Thank you for the suggestion though.
excalibur2 said:
erm well just thought you were interested in the photography side as programs like Photoshop work better in win 10 (and probably many other programs that are available) and there is nothing stopping you having dual boot.
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I do have a more powerful laptop which I bought with Windows 8 on it. It automatically upgraded itself to Windows 10. I immediately installed Ubuntu on it as a dual boot and shrank the Win 10 partition down to a small size and rarely boot to Win 10. Because I'm mean and take the view "I paid good money for this, so I'm keeping it". I do boot to Win 10 every few weeks, run the Norton ant-virus, which finds nothing of course, I then turn it off and only use Linux on it for the next month or so. I've been paying the annual AV fee to Norton every year as it's running on the laptop and my general purpose desktop. In the new year Norton AV won't be supported on my Vista desktop, hence I got off my backside and switched that machine to Linux. I won't be paying the annual subscription to Norton anymore, so I may well get rid of the Win 10 partition on my laptop, or maybe I won't, as I'm tight?
 
Did you overlook the recommendation of Digikam? It will need to install some KDE dependencies too.
 
NickT said:
Unfortunately, this application needs Wine to be installed first. Wine is a compatibility layer that allows Windows programs to run on Linux; it also allows malware to land on the host machine. It is generally accepted as a security risk and I will not be installing it on my machine. Thank you for the suggestion though.

I do have a more powerful laptop which I bought with Windows 8 on it. It automatically upgraded itself to Windows 10. I immediately installed Ubuntu on it as a dual boot and shrank the Win 10 partition down to a small size and rarely boot to Win 10. Because I'm mean and take the view "I paid good money for this, so I'm keeping it". I do boot to Win 10 every few weeks, run the Norton ant-virus, which finds nothing of course, I then turn it off and only use Linux on it for the next month or so. I've been paying the annual AV fee to Norton every year as it's running on the laptop and my general purpose desktop. In the new year Norton AV won't be supported on my Vista desktop, hence I got off my backside and switched that machine to Linux. I won't be paying the annual subscription to Norton anymore, so I may well get rid of the Win 10 partition on my laptop, or maybe I won't, as I'm tight?
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If Anti-Virus is your threshold for kicking Windows to the kerb, try the free versions of AVG or Sophos. No subscription costs then.
I work in support for media production and we have to run Windows for 70-80% of the tasks we need to perform because we need to use professional software that's not on Linux. The other 20-30% is done on Macs.
There's your compromise. Install MacOS on a PC (google Hackintosh). Nicer GUI, plenty of software available and Unix underneath it. (Mind you I don't like MacOS myself and I'm no fan of software subscriptions either).
 
ancient_mariner said:
Did you overlook the recommendation of Digikam? It will need to install some KDE dependencies too.
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I did look at it. If I installed anything, I'd want the retouch facility, as no matter how careful I am with my negatives, there's always a spot or little hair somewhere. Gimp does have a 'heal' tool which is not as quick and easy as Picasa but does work. Digikam, being written for a KDE,environment, seemed to want 356 MB of dependent packages, so I'll give it a miss and learn to get speedy with Gimp on my blobby negatives.
 
ABTog said:
If Anti-Virus is your threshold for kicking Windows to the kerb,
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Well for home users most (or all) virus problems are caused by a person behind the keyboard going to dodgy sites and clicking on dodgy emails...if minor upgrades to win 10 introduce a virus, there would be an outrage from businesses etc
 
excalibur2 said:
Well for home users most (or all) virus problems are caused by a person behind the keyboard going to dodgy sites and clicking on dodgy emails...if minor upgrades to win 10 introduce a virus, there would be an outrage from businesses etc
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I suggest that if you had a Linux computer, or even a RaspberryPi, port forwarded through your router and had fail2ban running on it to monitor the number of failed logins by bots, you might change your mind about that. This is why the RPi downloaded OS comes with the warning 'you MUST change you default password'. Quite a few of the failed logins will have tried the pwd 'raspberry'.
 
I've used Linux for 10+ years now and also have a back ground in electronics and communication software. Gimp is very well rated as a free Paint shop alternative but takes a bit of getting used to as you said a little over complex, I did use Image Magic as a quick tool in the past as well.

DEATH TO WINDOZE
 
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Sounds like you better write your own tool then, you have had a lot of suggestions but non of them were in the Goldielocks zone :LOL: Something like DarkTable might have more functionality than you would use but then you don't have to use all of it.
 
Thank you for all the suggestions, some of which I hadn't heard of at all. I've investigated them all and have pretty much settled on using Gimp for retouching and cropping etc. I've installed it and removed twice now - I really can't get on with snap as a package manager and have gone back to plain old apt install/remove. The result of using apt is that I can now use the gimp help files.

Linux is so much better at finding and running external devices connected via USB than Vista. It doesn't really matter what the device is, Linux will run it, with Vista it was always the case of turn it on, turn it off ... until the OS deigned to find it. The scanning was the the last and only thing that I had to make work under a much improved and smoother way of working. Nobody wants 2nd division type kit nowadays, so a 500GB hard drive can be had for £7 on e-bay. Vuescan is great with any scanner and can even recognise and drive the flatbed one. Being able to upgrade from the basic Windows version that I bought when I had a different e-mail address and postcode, to the professional Linux one at a discount was good value and amazingly flexible of Ed Hamrick to provide the option.
 
NickT said:
Digikam, being written for a KDE,environment, seemed to want 356 MB of dependent packages
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LongLensPhotography said:
Come on, it is 2020. not 2000.
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But the kit is a decade old, never really designed to run a modern version of any OS. I guess if the scanning hardware isn't going to change for another decade then there's no sense in upgrading the connected computer either *except* if you plan to let it connect to the internet.

NickT said:
Linux is so much better at finding and running external devices connected via USB than Vista. It doesn't really matter what the device is, Linux will run it, with Vista it was always the case of turn it on, turn it off ... until the OS deigned to find it.
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This is a bizarre comparison - I assume you're using a reasonably recent version of Ubuntu, whereas Vista is (happily) long dead and buried. The most annoying stuff with a modern windows OS is that legacy hardware like sound cards often gets abandoned, although if it will connect by USB then the reconition is usually excellent with more recent windows versions. However if you want an example of really sucky USB device management then look no further than OSX from the same era as Vista, though that comparison is equally pointless.

A couple of evenings back I downloaded a copy of KDE 5 Neon to try, though I've not got round to installing it yet. KDE 3 was great for photography (Ubuntu of that era was hideous) because DigiKam was designed to work with that DE's dependencies, but KDE 4 because bloated, slow and horrible. KDE 5 is supposed to have been re-written and to be fast & lightweight now - I'm quite looking forward to trying it.
 
BADGER.BRAD said:
I've used Linux for 10+ years now and also have a back ground in electronics and communication software. Gimp is very well rated as a free Paint shop alternative but takes a bit of getting used to as you said a little over complex, I did use Image Magic as a quick tool in the past as well.

DEATH TO WINDOZE
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Windows for Houses, Apple for eating. Linux for computers
 
excalibur2 said:
....unless you play games....when I'm bored (and for memories) sometimes play the original tomb raider games and works on win 10 and only 60p each from Steam.
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Each to his own, I suppose. I must admit that I'd quite like one of those machines (called Pong, I think) that I saw in the student union in 1973. It allowed you to move a line with a knob and make it bounce back a white dot! It was small, being hardly bigger than an average washing machine. I thought that it was the way computers were evolving and was so much more fun than filling a coding sheet and waiting till the next day to get a roll of teletype output saying 'syntax error line 1'.
On a serious note, I am grateful for nearly all the suggestions. I think I'll get a grip of Gimp, now that I've managed to change the visual theme from the supplied Stygian gloom of the default theme and have managed to get a local copy of the help docs on my machine.

Given that this forum, by definition, is concerned with an old technology, it is sad to see so many posters sneering at my old PC and its operating system. That's what I've got and it was working fine until so many software suppliers decided not to support it. I've managed to switch it to Linux (an operating system I've been familiar with for years) without spending a great deal of money and perform the same tasks as before. That's called 'maintaining capability'. I really couldn't give a toss what anyone does with a graphical desktop or how many GB of memory their latest PC has. I'd much rather read posts in this forum about where to get your cloth focal plane shutter refurbished or the best place to buy D76 these days.
 
NickT said:
is sad to see so many posters sneering at my old PC
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erm not me as I have five computers and in them are eight hard drives and four are 10-12 years old, and only one is six years old..and are all on win 10. The ten year old computer I'm on now has three hard drives for win 10 fast insider, one slow insider and one joe public win 10.
But did consider Ubantu for online banking maybe I'll get around to it one day.
 
NickT said:
Given that this forum, by definition, is concerned with an old technology,
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Sling that old film camera in the bin, load of old scrap ! What you really want is a large format trillion billion mega pixel camera then you can chuck your film scanner into land fill !
 
excalibur2 said:
erm not me as I have five computers and in them are eight hard drives and four are 10-12 years old, and only one is six years old..and are all on win 10. The ten year old computer I'm on now has three hard drives for win 10 fast insider, one slow insider and one joe public win 10.
But did consider Ubantu for online banking maybe I'll get around to it one day.
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I know that you wouldn't sneer, as you like old stuff, as do nearly all the posters on this forum. You too, like a bargain and stuff that is functional even if it's ugly. I think I own the ugliest film camera in the world, namely a Fed II with a collapsible lens.
If you've got so many old machines, have a look on ebay and get a 500GB hard drive for less than £10 and try out Ubuntu. It does everything you might want with what's bundled and it's free. I admit that it's no good for games, so if you want to play 'Godzilla versus the Dagenham Girl Pipers' or some other ridiculous game, you've got your Windows machines for that.
 
BADGER.BRAD said:
Sling that old film camera in the bin, load of old scrap ! What you really want is a large format trillion billion mega pixel camera then you can chuck your film scanner into land fill !
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You are so right. It's most important that all the owners of Rolleiflexes and Leica M4s bin their cameras, as they have been proven to spread Covid-19.
 
NickT said:
No, certainly not. Anyone with a background in computing and electronics who chose to buy a less versatile operating system over a free one, would be a certifiable idiot.
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and yet here you are clearly using a less versatile OS for your needs. Linux users, the vegans of the IT world.
 
Using Linux and scanners morphed into Old verses new/Windoze verses Linux and now into Vegans verses Meat eaters only on Talk photography !
 
NickT said:
Given that this forum, by definition, is concerned with an old technology, it is sad to see so many posters sneering at my old PC and its operating system.
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Really? You get one comment and you think so many posters are sneering at your old kit?:runaway: Nobody really minds whether you dumpster dive for hard drives, but you did come out with some daft stuff.

Anyway, do what ever works for you - your money, your choices.
 
AshleyC said:
and yet here you are clearly using a less versatile OS for your needs. Linux users, the vegans of the IT world.
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Not quite, I bet something you have used today used Linux, Android phone? an email server? may be even this forum. A better analogy would be using a 747 for the daily commute :-)
 
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