My Slackware 13.0 system says it does not know what to use to open a .jpg file. I checked a couple of other threads which say one is supposed to use gimp but that it does not work. What does work?

What desktop environment are you using? What email program? Does this happen with every file you try to open, or just one? How are you trying to open it? What is the exact error message you get? What other details have you not given us that may help to figure out the problem?

The most likely reason is that the email program doesn't have the file association set up properly, but without more information, it's impossible to say.

Probably off-topic but ...

If you are running slack then I assume know what you are doing (experienced slack users love it, but I don't think it is for "beginners" unless they have serious geek aspirations or experience).

If you haven't yet discarded your linux "training wheels" then perhaps you should consider a newbie-friendlier distro until you have found your linux feet: The 'buntus, mint and suse come to mind.

Sometimes it's a mistake to try to run before you can walk. But that's your choice and this is linux, where choice and freedom are all

I await flames from slackers (not)

Best wishes.

Thanks for posts. I will first reply to Tredegar. I was using Ubuntu but often had to kill the computer and reboot, I think because emacs would lose the cursor. Eventually the system failed. When I tried to reinstall, the GRUB loader messed up the disk partitions. I went to Slackware because it uses LILO and is careful to respect user wishes concerning partitions. Also, I am a retired programmer and wish to program. I will always be a Linux newbie because I am not smart enough to comprehend the organization of Linux in general nor the particular distributions. I prefer Slackware because it provides a programming environment and seems well controlled, though some things in it are difficult as well.

To DavidtheH. I use Yahoo mail. The email had a small picture beside a paper clip. I clicked on the picture. The message was "No virus threat detected. File X....jpg. Download file". I clicked "Download file". The message was "You have chosen to download X.jpg which is a JPEG Image from http:.... What should Firefox do with this file? Open with 'Browse' or Save?" At that point several different things could happen (since you asked whether it happens every time). Whether I clicked open or browse, where there was nothing to browse, the program downloaded the file to /tmp. In the last trial I got a message, "/tmp/X.jpg could not be opened, because the associated helper application does not exist. Change the association in your preferences". I had not seen this clue before, and will work on it, as I do not know what set of preferences is referred to. These things seem trivial to a person who knows what to do.

That's not, in my experience, usual behaviour. Is your hardware OK?
This sort of behaviour is recoverable, post the details here on LQ, and you'll get help.
We will all be linux newbies, forever, because linux is continually evolving, and doing that at speed. Mostly it's backwards-compatible. If you are a retired programmer, you should have no problems learning the linux command line for the occasions you need it. It is very logical and you are (just take my word for it) "smart enough". The different distros just add "eye-candy" or convenience. The underlying OS is the linux kernel, and the command-line commands generally work across all distros.

If you have the patience, I believe slack to be a fine choice. Personally, I just need to get things done (work), hence I chose an "easy" distro like ubuntu. It works.

In your GUI (whatever it is), generally R-clicking a file will offer the option to "Open With..." and also "Remember this association". You might try this. But if you are very new to linux, you probably don't know what application to choose, that's why I recommended some other distros to try, until you get comfortable with linux. They have already chosen sensible defaults (slack doesn't necessarily do this). If you don't like them (and I would NEVER choose to open an email jpg with gimp, I just need a fast "viewer"), then you can change them. Once you learn how. It's not at all difficult.

I dual-booted win for about 4 months, way back, until I was happy that I knew (sufficient for my needs) how to use linux.
I never looked back.

Persevere, it's worth it.
Good luck.

1 members found this post helpful.

Tredegar, Thanks for your reply.

Let me first give an answer to my original question, how to view a JPEG image. My GUI interface is KDE, which is what Slackware gives. The problem is that Firefox, in Slackware, wants the user to browse for something to use on a JPEG. Following one of my error messages, I went to Firefox> Preferences> Applications> JPEG Image. There was a button to select an application to use. I asked at the console "Which gimp" and got /usr/bin/gimp, and then clicked down through the directory displays until I found it, and then clicked "Open". Lo and behold, the preferences now showed gimp for JPEGs. The only problem is that it does not work; but at least now I know that when Yahoo mail (or Firefox itself) gives the download query, I can click down through the directories each time and open the attachment with gimp.

Concerning all those system freezes with Ubuntu, it could be a hardware problem; it is always hard to tell. They were so much more frequent with Ubuntu 9.10 that I suspected it. Concerning the messing up of partitions by Ubuntu, it was a vast and sprawling set of actions, at the end of which I did not know what I had because my disk organization was destroyed. It would have been hard to present the details of that. There is no question here of using Windows. I do feel comfortable with the command line interface; one of the several reasons I prefer Slackware is that it is more natural to use it there, although Ubuntu does allow it. It seems true that one can download packages easily with Ubuntu. I downloaded curses but then found that the man pages for it were missing. In Slackware you get the whole thing through the installation. So each distribution has easy parts and hard parts, it seems to me.

You say you never use gimp to view JPEGs. I think I see what you mean, as it produces all sorts of palate windows as though one were preparing to touch up the Mona Lisa. The data I was sent, by the way, was statistical information. I do not yet know why my friend sent it by JPEG, as the letters are blurry. But let me ask, what plugin would you use to see JPEGs?

It's not a "plugin", it's just a program. The website is offering up the file for download, and Firefox is simply passing it on to whatever external program you associate with that mime-type.

Gimp is the "GNU Image Manipulation Program", a full image editor, similar to Photoshop. There are many lighter programs available for simple viewing, such as gwenview or kuickshow. Google and/or your package manager can give you more options.

But what you really need to do in this case is go into your yahoo preferences and tell it to allow the display of image attachments. I believe it's in the spam settings section.

Note whether the browser opens a supported file directly or tries to call an external program depends on how the website serves the files and has nothing to do with your personal settings. Yes, this can be annoying when you want the browser to "just show me the darn picture!" or text, or whatever.

One way that I discovered recently to work around this is with the "Open In Browser" extension, which can redirect the external call back into Firefox itself. I've found it to be very convenient in cases similar to this.

I have an old installation of kubuntu 8.04. It uses KDE3.x which is good. KDE4.x I cannot work with, although I have tried.

In Kubuntu 8.04 I have set the default to open JPEGs with gwenview. It's fast and works fine.

On my ubuntu 10.04.1, running gnome, it opens JPGs with "Eye of GNOME" AKA eog from the command line ( which eog might help you here ), which again is fast and simple.

The gimp is not a suitable choice for a default jpg viewer, because it is an "image manipulator" and carries a lot of overhead. I think you just need a "viewer". See above.

As I said, slack maybe isn't for a linux newbie. It is a good distro ( I'm told ), but you have to configure everything yourself. That's OK when you have learnt a bit about linux, otherwise, maybe not the best distro to start out with or you'll run into opening JPGs with gimp, by default.

Have you tried the Slackware forum here on LQ ?

I do not use anything to do with yahoo, so cannot offer advice on that. Sorry.

Your problem has nothing to do wit e-mail, it's just that Firefox doesn't know what to open downloaded files with. You should be able to select a program in the prompt.

I will take note of the several other approaches and try them later. But for the time, this gwenview program handles viewing the JPEG in a way that is convenient as these things go.--In the future, such a question as this is indeed more particular to the Slackware distribution, and I will think first of posting it there. This problem (minor to everyone but me) can be considered solved. Thanks to all.