Hi,

In December I upgraded from Ubuntu 10.04 to 12.04 and then to Ubuntu 14.04.

I have always used Picasa as my photo manager, and all my photos each with individual headings for the last 7 years are on Picasa 3.0. Today I tried to import my last holiday photos into Picasa, and something called Shotwell photo manager opened and started importing 7 years of my photos. I stopped the process quite quickly, as I had never heard of Shotwell, and I just wanted to add my new photos to my existing photo library in Picasa.

I feel that I should be able to choose which photo manager I want to use, I realise that Picasa is a Google programme and quite old, and Shotwell is Linux and new, but I am familiar with Picasa and do not want to change to any other programme.

Please can somebody tell me in simple terms how to keep Picasa as my default photo manager and get rid of Shotwell.

Any help will be much appreciated, thank you.

septuagenarian,

**In case of problems, please do ensure that all your photos are backed up to an external drive before proceeding further.

Google withdrew support for Picasa under Linux in 2012 and Picasa is not available in the Ubuntu 14.04 repositories:
http://askubuntu.com/questions/14647...n-i-install-it

However, Picasa is still available in the Linux Mint repositories.

Plan A If you have managed to install your old Picasa 3.0 in Ubuntu 14.04 and there is a chance that it might work, then this is how to remove Shotwell.

Press the Ctrl + Alt + T keys simultaneously to open the Terminal, then type:

Press the Enter key and type your user password.

Note that for security reasons, your password will not be displayed as you type.
Press Enter.

If you are asked to continue, type y

and press Enter again.

If you need to reinstall Shotwell:

Press the Enter key and type your user password.
Press Enter.

To start Picasa you need to go to the Terminal again and type:

Press Enter.


Plan B If you cannot get Picasa 3.0 to work in Ubuntu 14.04, then you need to install Linux Mint 17.1 (either MATE or Cinnamon). I used LM 17.1 MATE 32 bit, which can be downloaded from:
http://www.linuxmint.com/edition.php?id=173


**You will need to backup all your documents, photos, email, bookmarks etc to an external hard drive before proceeding further.

Once LM 17.1 is installed, you need to install Picasa (version 3.0.5744-02).

Open the Terminal (see Menu > Favourites or System) and type:

Press the Enter key and type your user password. Press Enter.

If you are asked to continue, type y

and press Enter again.

To start Picasa you need to go to the Terminal again and type:

(press Enter)

There does not appear to be an option to open Picasa other than via the Terminal, but Picasa 3.0.5744-02 does work in LM 17.1. I have tested it.

beachboy2

Thank you so much for your detailed reply.

I have never used the Terminal before as I have no knowledge of computer terminology, but thanks to your step by step instructions I plucked up the courage to have a try. To ensure no mistakes, I copied and pasted your command line to remove Shotwell, and it worked great. Then I opened Picasa, connected my camera, clicked Import and the photos loaded perfectly, brilliant!

I've been using Picasa since 2007 on my old Windows XP computer, in 2010 I bought a new computer and a friend of my sons introduced me to Linux by installing Ubuntu 10.04, he added Picasa at the same time. When I updated in December to 12.04 then 14.04, Picasa stayed on and still works fine, it opens from a shortcut in the column on the left of the screen.

Once again, many thanks, your help has solved my problem.

Well done.

Many people are wary about using the command line initially.

Once they find that they can achieve a lot very quickly and efficiently, it soon becomes second nature.

Don't forget to mark the thread as SOLVED (see Thread Tools above your original post).