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Changing Digikam environment

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tosca

Changing Digikam environment

I intend to switch quite soon from Ubuntu to Fedora (Digikam 1.5 is already available with this distro).
This will be the first time I'll desinstall a system to put another one in its place. Is there anything I should know before doing that, or will Digikam work "straight out of the box" with the new distribution and my current images?

Additionally, as I will have two different computers with the same distribution, can I move my images and database to an external drive so I can use it with either computer?

Thanks for answers,
Marie-Noëlle

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jag59

Re: Changing Digikam environment

Marie-Noëlle Augendre wrote

I intend to switch quite soon from Ubuntu to Fedora (Digikam 1.5 is already
available with this distro).
This will be the first time I'll desinstall a system to put another one in
its place. Is there anything I should know before doing that, or will
Digikam work "straight out of the box" with the new distribution and my
current images?

Additionally, as I will have two different computers with the same
distribution, can I move my images and database to an external drive so I
can use it with either computer?

Thanks for answers,
Marie-Noëlle

--
Une galerie photos, un blog ... pourquoi pas ? Webmaster en
herbe<http://www.webmaster-en-herbe.net/>

Parcourez les Cévennes à ma façon : Cévennes
Plurielles<http://www.cevennes-plurielles.com>

Et toutes mes autres publications à partir de ma page d'accueil
générale<http://www.marie-noelle-augendre.com>

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Hi Marie-Noëlle

Best luck for the switch over,but before that,I humbly request you to test PCLinuxoS2010-KDE in virtual box or with a live CD.It is a rolling distro giving latest applications. You need not install every after 6 months,though necessary after @ 3 years approximately.
We (PCLinuxoS users) got Digikam 1.5 on the date of it's release,see at
http://www.pclinuxos.com/forum/index.php/topic,80953.0.html
No distro is 100% perfect/stable but I prefer PCLinuxoS over bleeding edge Fedora.Moreover I need not install every after 6 months and can use my time & energy in getting acquainted with applications, mastering them to the extent possible and getting some output!
Regarding "as I will have two different computers with the same distribution, can I move my images and database to an external drive so I can use it with either computer?"........pl. go through the tips at
http://digikam.1695700.n4.nabble.com/Transferring-image-files-and-database-to-new-hard-drive-tp2400948p2400948.html
There ' Andreas Tono' mentions that " Think about the timestamps for each file in the filesystem.
If digikam keeeps that also in the database you may get a problem."
'Lucky Backup' has nice GUI,is fast & is based upon 'rsync'.....this may help you.
Pl. request ' Darren Kirby ' for his experience reg his data transfer to new hard disk at the above mentioned post/link. His feed back will help many others.

Regards. .

Jagdeesh Deshpande.
Registered Linux user #492893

Martin (KDE)

Re: Changing Digikam environment

In reply to this post by tosca

Am Samstag, 23. Oktober 2010 schrieb Marie-Noëlle Augendre:
> I intend to switch quite soon from Ubuntu to Fedora (Digikam 1.5 is
> already available with this distro).
> This will be the first time I'll desinstall a system to put another
> one in its place. Is there anything I should know before doing
> that, or will Digikam work "straight out of the box" with the new
> distribution and my current images?

If your path to the photos and your home files do not change, you will
not see any difference, it will run out of the box.

If you loose your home data, you loose all data only stored in the
digikam database only (like tags that are not stored in the photos
itself - this can be enabled/disabled in the configuration).

I am not really sure what happens, if the path to your photos changes.
In theory digikam can link the internal data to the newly scanned
photos (afaik digikam stores a checksum for every photo calculated
form the first n bytes) but if this work in praxis? I never tried it.

>
> Additionally, as I will have two different computers with the same
> distribution, can I move my images and database to an external
> drive so I can use it with either computer?

Yes this is possible. I have all my photos on a server (access via
NFS) and the user based digikam files are stored on the fileserver as
well but are restored at every login to the local computer and copied
back to the server if I logout. Once I accessed all my data via NFS,
but I was told not to do so, as database files may get corrupted if NFS
has a little failure.

So, for your external drive you can configure your digikam to store the
database to the external drive side by side with the photos. But
digikam will not work, if the external hard disk is not attached. If
you want/have to share your photos with others (like family members)
it may be a good idea to setup a small server for sharing not only
photos.

Martin

>
> Thanks for answers,
> Marie-Noëlle

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tosca

Re: Changing Digikam environment

In reply to this post by tosca

2010/10/24 Jagdeesh <[hidden email]>

Hi Marie-Noëlle

Best luck for the switch over,but before that,I humbly request you to test PCLinuxoS2010-KDE in virtual box or with a live CD....

Thanks for your advice, but Fedora-Gnome seems to do the trick for me. And the french forum has been quite helpful and quick to help me solve the few problems I've had when installing.

Digikam 1.5 is now installed on my "old" computer. I've yet to decide how I'm going to manage my photos base, on the hard drive (I have to switch from Ubuntu to Fedora on my "new" computer first) or from an external drive so I can have access to it from either computer.

Marie-Noëlle

--
Une galerie photos, un blog ... pourquoi pas ? Webmaster en herbe

Parcourez les Cévennes à ma façon : Cévennes Plurielles

Et toutes mes autres publications à partir de ma page d'accueil générale

_______________________________________________
Digikam-users mailing list
[hidden email]
https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/digikam-users

tosca

Re: Changing Digikam environment

In reply to this post by Martin (KDE)

2010/10/24 Martin (KDE) <[hidden email]>

Am Samstag, 23. Oktober 2010 schrieb Marie-Noëlle Augendre:

> I intend to switch quite soon from Ubuntu to Fedora (Digikam 1.5 is
> already available with this distro).
> This will be the first time I'll desinstall a system to put another
> one in its place. Is there anything I should know before doing
> that, or will Digikam work "straight out of the box" with the new
> distribution and my current images?

If your path to the photos and your home files do not change, you will
not see any difference, it will run out of the box.

If you loose your home data, you loose all data only stored in the
digikam database only (like tags that are not stored in the photos
itself - this can be enabled/disabled in the configuration).

I'd rather re-partition the disk, and go for ext4 instead of ext3 in the process. So, I guess I'll have to save the whole /home data, then reload them after the new distro installation.
How will it go with Digikam?

>
> Additionally, as I will have two different computers with the same
> distribution, can I move my images and database to an external
> drive so I can use it with either computer?

So, for your external drive you can configure your digikam to store the
database to the external drive side by side with the photos. But
digikam will not work, if the external hard disk is not attached. If
you want/have to share your photos with others (like family members)
it may be a good idea to setup a small server for sharing not only
photos.

Martin

I don't have to share with anybody.
Just thinking about the most convenient way to use one photos base with two different computers. Obviously, one will be more used than the other one; but they could be using different distro and/or Digikam versions at the same time, as I could use one for testing before upgrading the other for example.

Marie-Noëlle

Martin (KDE)

Re: Changing Digikam environment

Am 30.10.2010 17:12, schrieb Marie-Noëlle Augendre:

>
>
> 2010/10/24 Martin (KDE) <[hidden email] <mailto:[hidden email]>>
>
> Am Samstag, 23. Oktober 2010 schrieb Marie-Noëlle Augendre:
> > I intend to switch quite soon from Ubuntu to Fedora (Digikam 1.5 is
> > already available with this distro).
> > This will be the first time I'll desinstall a system to put another
> > one in its place. Is there anything I should know before doing
> > that, or will Digikam work "straight out of the box" with the new
> > distribution and my current images?
>
> If your path to the photos and your home files do not change, you will
> not see any difference, it will run out of the box.
>
> If you loose your home data, you loose all data only stored in the
> digikam database only (like tags that are not stored in the photos
> itself - this can be enabled/disabled in the configuration).
>
>
> I'd rather re-partition the disk, and go for ext4 instead of ext3 in the
> process. So, I guess I'll have to save the whole /home data, then reload
> them after the new distro installation.
> How will it go with Digikam?

It depends. You can configure where digikam stores the internal database
files. If you used your home directory for this it is all you need to
backup (besides your photos of course). If your photos are stored on
your home directory as well, you are almost done. Just make sure, your
path name does not change (or create a symlink) and on it goes.

>
>
> >
> > Additionally, as I will have two different computers with the same
> > distribution, can I move my images and database to an external
> > drive so I can use it with either computer?
>
>
>
> So, for your external drive you can configure your digikam to store the
> database to the external drive side by side with the photos. But
> digikam will not work, if the external hard disk is not attached. If
> you want/have to share your photos with others (like family members)
> it may be a good idea to setup a small server for sharing not only
> photos.
>
> Martin
>
>
> I don't have to share with anybody.
> Just thinking about the most convenient way to use one photos base with
> two different computers. Obviously, one will be more used than the other
> one; but they could be using different distro and/or Digikam versions at
> the same time, as I could use one for testing before upgrading the other
> for example.

Using a external drive is one way. If you store your digikam database on
the external drive as well this is ok. If you store the database on your
home drive, you will lose all tags and additional information not stored
in the photos itself (either because you have not done it, or because it
is not possible - tags can not be stored in canon raw files).

I am not sure, how digikam handles extension to database layout in newer
versions. If you try a new versions, the database may change in an
incompatible way, so that an old digikam version is no longer able to
read it. But this is wild guessing.

>
> Marie-Noëlle
>
>

Maritn
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tosca

Re: Changing Digikam environment

In reply to this post by Martin (KDE)

2010/10/24 Martin (KDE) <[hidden email]>

> Additionally, as I will have two different computers with the same
> distribution, can I move my images and database to an external
> drive so I can use it with either computer?

>
Yes this is possible. I have all my photos on a server (access via
NFS) and the user based digikam files are stored on the fileserver as
well but are restored at every login to the local computer and copied
back to the server if I logout. Once I accessed all my data via NFS,
but I was told not to do so, as database files may get corrupted if NFS
has a little failure.

So, for your external drive you can configure your digikam to store the
database to the external drive side by side with the photos. But
digikam will not work, if the external hard disk is not attached. If
you want/have to share your photos with others (like family members)
it may be a good idea to setup a small server for sharing not only
photos.

Martin

>
> Thanks for answers,
> Marie-Noëlle

Just checking before making mistakes ...

In order to transfer my images and database from the internal drive to an external one, is it OK if I:
- first, move my whole /home/mine/Images/ folder (that includes the pictures and the database apparently) using my usual file manager
- then, open Digikam and change the configuration so it looks for the new drive path

... unless Digikam will 'protest' that it cannot find the old database?

Thanks for advice,
Marie-Noëlle

Martin (KDE)

Re: Changing Digikam environment

Am Freitag, 19. November 2010 schrieb Marie-Noëlle Augendre:

> 2010/10/24 Martin (KDE) <[hidden email]>
>
> > > Additionally, as I will have two different computers with the
> > > same distribution, can I move my images and database to an
> > > external drive so I can use it with either computer?
> >
> > Yes this is possible. I have all my photos on a server (access
> > via NFS) and the user based digikam files are stored on the
> > fileserver as well but are restored at every login to the local
> > computer and copied back to the server if I logout. Once I
> > accessed all my data via NFS, but I was told not to do so, as
> > database files may get corrupted if NFS has a little failure.
> >
> > So, for your external drive you can configure your digikam to
> > store the database to the external drive side by side with the
> > photos. But digikam will not work, if the external hard disk is
> > not attached. If you want/have to share your photos with others
> > (like family members) it may be a good idea to setup a small
> > server for sharing not only photos.
> >
> > Martin
> >
> > > Thanks for answers,
> > > Marie-Noëlle
> >
> > Just checking before making mistakes ...
>
> In order to transfer my images and database from the internal drive
> to an external one, is it OK if I:
> - first, move my whole /home/mine/Images/ folder (that includes
> the pictures and the database apparently) using my usual file
> manager - then, open Digikam and change the configuration so it
> looks for the new drive path
>
> ... unless Digikam will 'protest' that it cannot find the old
> database?

I am not sure about this. It is worth a try. But just in case, make a
backup copy of your database file.

Martin

>
> Thanks for advice,
> Marie-Noëlle

_______________________________________________
Digikam-users mailing list
[hidden email]
https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/digikam-users

tosca

Re: Changing Digikam environment

In fact, I didn't MOVE the directory, just COPY it.
So, as for now, I still have the original one on the HDD of one machine. And the copy on the external drive, so I can use it on the other machine. And I intend to check everything is OK before erasing the original.

Thanks for your answer, anyway.
Marie-Noëlle

2010/11/21 Martin (KDE) <[hidden email]>

Am Freitag, 19. November 2010 schrieb Marie-Noëlle Augendre:

> 2010/10/24 Martin (KDE) <[hidden email]>
>
> > > Additionally, as I will have two different computers with the
> > > same distribution, can I move my images and database to an
> > > external drive so I can use it with either computer?
> >
> > Yes this is possible. I have all my photos on a server (access
> > via NFS) and the user based digikam files are stored on the
> > fileserver as well but are restored at every login to the local
> > computer and copied back to the server if I logout. Once I
> > accessed all my data via NFS, but I was told not to do so, as
> > database files may get corrupted if NFS has a little failure.
> >
> > So, for your external drive you can configure your digikam to
> > store the database to the external drive side by side with the
> > photos. But digikam will not work, if the external hard disk is
> > not attached. If you want/have to share your photos with others
> > (like family members) it may be a good idea to setup a small
> > server for sharing not only photos.
> >
> > Martin
> >
> > > Thanks for answers,
> > > Marie-Noëlle
> >
> > Just checking before making mistakes ...
>
> In order to transfer my images and database from the internal drive
> to an external one, is it OK if I:
> - first, move my whole /home/mine/Images/ folder (that includes
> the pictures and the database apparently) using my usual file
> manager - then, open Digikam and change the configuration so it
> looks for the new drive path
>
> ... unless Digikam will 'protest' that it cannot find the old
> database?

I am not sure about this. It is worth a try. But just in case, make a
backup copy of your database file.

Martin

>
> Thanks for advice,
> Marie-Noëlle

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Digikam-users mailing list
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