It does not show up in any kind of search. Is there a way to get it without having to resort to 3rd party repos? Failing that is there any other alternatives that are as good?

The Raw Studio PPA (https://launchpad.net/~rawstudio/+archive/ubuntu/ppa) is maintained by Raw Studio themselves. As long as you are reasonably careful, using PPAs is fine.

What involves being careful though? I've botched way too many systems because of 3rd party repos. I suppose I could put it in to install and then take it out so future updates use the main repos.

It's a repo maintained by the people who produce the software in the first place. Sounds safe enough to me. Make a system backup if you want to before installing.

If it isn't in the main repos, there will be no future updates if you remove the Raw Studio PPA after installation.

If you're really worrying about things, download the source code and build it for your system. Of course you'll have to do this every time there is a new version, but the software doesn't appear to produce new versions very often.

Don't like going by source, since it does not integrate properly in the system that way. (ex: "open with" option, entry in start menu etc) not to mention having to deal with dependency hell. End up having to install like 100 different packages just to get 1 to go.

The issue I've had with PPA is that they may have other packages like kernel so when I do a system update it takes the packages from there instead. But guess I should be safe to install the PPA install the software, then remove the PPA? Suppose I should be safe doing that, think I'll try it.

Edit:
Well that sucks.

Looks like I need to find another raw viewer. Any suggestions for ones that will work on this distro?

Yes, it does suck. You could always contact Raw Studio and ask them if they could produce a Xenial version.

Anyway, a few alternatives are mentioned in this article: http://www.noobslab.com/2013/12/dark...d-install.html

Just tried Darktable and it's in the normal repo. It's different and will take a bit of getting use to, but at first glance it looks pretty good.

Very popular with the people that use Digikam. Fedora has rawstudio, I might need to have a look at it.

Just to clear this up: such has nothing to do with source or using a distro's binary packages. Either way as long as the application installs the necessary '.desktop' files as specified in the locations by freedesktop/XDG, then they will be found and associated desktop and menu entries will be created. In fact I'm sure you're find a few packages from official repos where they do not. It's just a matter of the maintainer making sure it's correct.

Just in case you do decide to install from source, https://wiki.debian.org/DontBreakDeb...ake_install.27. I follow their advice and use https://wiki.debian.org/CheckInstall every time.

This won't happen if you read what APT/Synaptic/whatever is telling you when you do an update, which is good practice. That list can get lengthy, but even if you are only using official repos, stuff can break on an update if you don't read it. APT doesn't do anything without asking (unless you tell it otherwise).

I still don't have control over if the application installs .desktop files or whatever is is that is involved though. Most programs I've seen when installed from source just install into the nether and only way to open it is to know the command and use command line each time. I want to be able to double click on a .nef file and it opens.

So far I'm not really liking any of the alternatives, Raw Studio just had a really nice and streamlined work flow, the other ones you pretty much have to work on one picture at a time, then save it. With Raw Studio I could work on 100's at a time, then just export the ones I chose/edited at the end.

I may have to look into another distro.

that is true.
it is up to the developer to include these or not, and up to you to go with the defaults or change them.



this is not true and, again, entirely up to the developer(s) of the program in question.
i don't have desktop entries for ls, grep or rm either, but i could easily create them.

come back if you want help with that.



ALL filemanagers i know have an option to setthat up manually if you so wish. usually right-click => open with... some dialog pops up. example


may i ask again what it is you want to achieve? open .NEF files and batch-edit them?
i just accidentally found out that rawtherapee can handle nef raw files, and it is def. capable of batch editing, from my experience with canon raw files.



i doubt a distro change will help you, but knock yourself out by all means.

That may have been brought about by my Fedora comment. And no, I haven't installed it yet. When the footy finals are over I may get back to my photos - but on Arch, not on Fedora.

I tried Rawtherapee but you have to work on one file at a time, there is no interface where you can overview all of them, make some adjustments, go to next etc... then export all the ones you want. You work on one, then save it, then work on other, save it. This is a really painful workflow.

Darktable somewhat has this though so think I will just have to learn to use that one. It's a different workflow but I might be able to manage. This is the first distro I use that does not have Rawstudio, so I know another distro would probably work. I guess a good way to test is to run the live CD first and see if it's in the repo. I never really think of doing that when picking a distro as I just assume all the programs I want will be available.

This is the issue with Linux though, each individual distro needs to have a package for every program. I see why commercial devs don't want to support it. you almost need to hire a whole dept just to package software for each distro. I don't know why they can't come up with a universal way of doing it so a package just works on any distro, and also solves all the dependencies.