Re: How does one use digikam source for casual testing?

[Paul Waldo]

Thanks for the reply, Lawrence. 

There are two main scenarios that I'm concerned about.  The first is immediate and obvious image trashing.  I do maintain backups; I have bacula write backups to a separate server every night.  So, if the new software immediately trashes all my photos, I *could* restore them.  I would certainly prefer to avoid that situation, though.

The second scenario is much more insidious.  Let's say that a bug causes image corruption that is not immediately obvious.  Your image thumbnails look fine but, unbeknown to you, the bug has truncated your original image file.  Imagine the feeling of dread when, seven months from now, you go to print that priceless image of your child as an infant, only to find out that image has a file size of zero.  My backups only live for six months, so I'm out of luck.

I know that with digital images, there is a certain amount of faith in both the hardware and software used to store and manipulate images.  I've been in this business too long to have blind faith, though :-) 

What I would like to be able to do is take a subset of my images, make copies in separate location, and test the new software with those images.  I'm afraid though that if I just fire up new software, it will look for the existing configuration, and start processing my real (not test) images.  Is there any way to have "non-production" digikam use a different album root?

Paul

----- Original Message -----
From: "Lawrence Plug" <[hidden email]>
To: "digiKam - Digital Photo Management for the masses" <[hidden email]>
Sent: Thursday, May 8, 2008 11:48:11 AM (GMT-0500) America/New_York
Subject: Re: [Digikam-users] How does one use digikam source for casual        testing?

Hi Paul,

I'm using the latest beta of 0.9.4 and find it very stable. It
hasn't done anything nasty :-). I kept 0.9.3 which comes in my
linux distribution's repositories, but never use it now
that I have 0.9.4. Your mileage may vary of course.

I wouldn't do it without backups (but of course we should have
those anyway, beta program or not).  I have about 400GB
of photos managed by digikam, and mainly use unison (very handy
backup utility) to maintain a local mirror of my image tree on a
USB hard drive, and also a mirror on my server at work. In
addition, DVD backups sporadically.

cheers
L



On Thu, May 08, 2008 at 11:26:53AM -0400, Paul Waldo wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> I have finally gotten digikam to compile from source, but I am hesitating
> before running it.  I would like to check out the bleeding edge features, but I
> certainly don't want an obscure bug walking through my image tree deleting
> every image in sight. :-O  I also want to maintain a stable version for
> day-to-day use.
>
> So, for those who have their feet in both the stable and beta worlds, how do
> you do it without worrying about bugs permanently removing your priceless
> photos?  Thanks for any tips!
>
> Paul

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Paul Waldo wrote:

  My backups only live for
> six months, so I'm out of luck.

bad backups.

I hold three live copies of my images:

* raw ones. (not raw files, I use only jpeg, but unmodified ones, from
the camera)
* edited ones (mostly with digikam)

*published ones (on web sites). In fact I have two copies of these,
one locally, one on the website

time to time I write a dvd. say any time I do a big shot. the two kind
of images (edited and unedited) I keep these dvd ad vitam eternam (not
very large). I always make full dvd, so I have on any new dvd the new
shots + all the old ones fitting the dvd.

right now (in fact two weeks ago), I copied my photo collection to a
USB Hard drive (backed by an other usb hard drive, with all my other
archives)

given I also send dvd's to the family, and my web hosting is a hosted
computer, I hope not to lose too many photos.

... also, I only remove the images from the flash card when the card
is full, an other copie, then

and with all this I still happen to lose some photos: for exemple,
once, after a backup on disk, I ended with two sets of... zero length
files. Never understood why the original was also zero, suspect some
sort of loop, writing the files on themselves.

but it's very unfrequent.

and don't forget: as soon as a new medium come, copy on it (for me
dvd-> USB drive, and when bluray begin to be cheap dvd->bluray)

jdd

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Dnia Thursday 08 of May 2008, Paul Waldo napisał:

> Thanks for the reply, Lawrence.
>
> There are two main scenarios that I'm concerned about. The first is
> immediate and obvious image trashing. I do maintain backups; I have
> bacula write backups to a separate server every night. So, if the new
> software immediately trashes all my photos, I *could* restore them. I
> would certainly prefer to avoid that situation, though.
>
> The second scenario is much more insidious. Let's say that a bug causes
> image corruption that is not immediately obvious. Your image thumbnails
> look fine but, unbeknown to you, the bug has truncated your original
> image file. Imagine the feeling of dread when, seven months from now,
> you go to print that priceless image of your child as an infant, only to
> find out that image has a file size of zero. My backups only live for
> six months, so I'm out of luck.

Well, I am using digiKam for over four years and almost from the
beginning riding on cvs/svn. Never had any type of problems mentioned by
you.

Note that in bugzilla *are* reports about vanishing images or corrupted
ones. They are rarely confirmed and rather specific to some special
combination of software/hardware but sh* happens.

m.

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[Lawrence Plug]

Hi Paul,

On Thu, May 08, 2008 at 12:22:12PM -0400, Paul Waldo wrote:

> Thanks for the reply, Lawrence.
>
> There are two main scenarios that I'm concerned about.  The first is immediate
> and obvious image trashing.  I do maintain backups; I have bacula write backups
> to a separate server every night.  So, if the new software immediately trashes
> all my photos, I *could* restore them.  I would certainly prefer to avoid that
> situation, though.
>
> The second scenario is much more insidious.  Let's say that a bug causes image
> corruption that is not immediately obvious.  Your image thumbnails look fine
> but, unbeknown to you, the bug has truncated your original image file.  Imagine
> the feeling of dread when, seven months from now, you go to print that
> priceless image of your child as an infant, only to find out that image has a
> file size of zero.  My backups only live for six months, so I'm out of luck.

I understand the concerns. As I noted I've had not problems, but
before switching to svn (and any new version) I do a full
_additional_ backup (thank goodness for cheap disks), which I
don't touch until I've used the new version for a while, poked
around with files and monitored the results. Its not a perfect
solution as it is an incomplete and informal process, granted. In
addition I have the DVDs of originals.
 

> I know that with digital images, there is a certain amount of faith in both the
> hardware and software used to store and manipulate images.  I've been in this
> business too long to have blind faith, though :-)

Crap happens :-) In a previous life I maintained tape backups for
a multiuser system using appropriate incrementals etc. I sure do
prefer the ease and informality of multiple external disks,
unison, and a remote server, for my personal use!

> What I would like to be able to do is take a subset of my images, make copies
> in separate location, and test the new software with those images.  I'm afraid
> though that if I just fire up new software, it will look for the existing
> configuration, and start processing my real (not test) images.  Is there any
> way to have "non-production" digikam use a different album root?

And here is the simple question for which I do not have a simple
answer.. how to tell the svn digikam to use a different root.

someone here should know?

A workaround would be to run the svn digikam as a different user.

cheers
L

> Paul
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Lawrence Plug" <[hidden email]>
> To: "digiKam - Digital Photo Management for the masses" <[hidden email]>
> Sent: Thursday, May 8, 2008 11:48:11 AM (GMT-0500) America/New_York
> Subject: Re: [Digikam-users] How does one use digikam source for
> casual        testing?
>
> Hi Paul,
>
> I'm using the latest beta of 0.9.4 and find it very stable. It
> hasn't done anything nasty :-). I kept 0.9.3 which comes in my
> linux distribution's repositories, but never use it now
> that I have 0.9.4. Your mileage may vary of course.
>
> I wouldn't do it without backups (but of course we should have
> those anyway, beta program or not).  I have about 400GB
> of photos managed by digikam, and mainly use unison (very handy
> backup utility) to maintain a local mirror of my image tree on a
> USB hard drive, and also a mirror on my server at work. In
> addition, DVD backups sporadically.
>
> cheers
> L
>
>
>
> On Thu, May 08, 2008 at 11:26:53AM -0400, Paul Waldo wrote:
> > Hi all,
> >
> > I have finally gotten digikam to compile from source, but I am hesitating
> > before running it.  I would like to check out the bleeding edge features, but
> I
> > certainly don't want an obscure bug walking through my image tree deleting
> > every image in sight. :-O  I also want to maintain a stable version for
> > day-to-day use.
> >
> > So, for those who have their feet in both the stable and beta worlds, how do
> > you do it without worrying about bugs permanently removing your priceless
> > photos?  Thanks for any tips!
> >
> > Paul
>
> > _______________________________________________
> > Digikam-users mailing list
> > [hidden email]
> > https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/digikam-users
>
> _______________________________________________
> Digikam-users mailing list
> [hidden email]
> https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/digikam-users

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


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Lawrence Plug wrote:

>> way to have "non-production" digikam use a different album root?
>
> And here is the simple question for which I do not have a simple
> answer.. how to tell the svn digikam to use a different root.
>
> someone here should know?
>
> A workaround would be to run the svn digikam as a different user.

in fact the problem is have two instances of digikam on the same user
session.

it's very easy with other products like firefox, but I don't know for
digikam

You already know, I suppose, that digikam database is related to the
digikam root and can be easily modified (config, albums)

jdd

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[Lawrence Plug]

On Fri, May 09, 2008 at 04:24:27PM +0200, jdd wrote:

> Lawrence Plug wrote:
>
> >> way to have "non-production" digikam use a different album root?
> >
> > And here is the simple question for which I do not have a simple
> > answer.. how to tell the svn digikam to use a different root.
> >
> > someone here should know?
> >
> > A workaround would be to run the svn digikam as a different user.
>
> in fact the problem is have two instances of digikam on the same user
> session.
>
> it's very easy with other products like firefox, but I don't know for
> digikam
>
> You already know, I suppose, that digikam database is related to the
> digikam root and can be easily modified (config, albums)

Yes.

 I'm suggesting that the svn digikam be run as a different user,
which would allow for a different digikam root (pointing to the
copy, so the OPs original remain 'safe').

I don't think its possible to have two instances on the same user
session. The KDE4 digikam is said to be more flexible in roots
(my understanding) but I don't know if it will address
'multiple-instance' issue.  I haven't compiled it yet.

cheers
L
 
> jdd
>
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[Paul Waldo]

That is indeed the solution I am adopting.  I think that's the safest way for an old paranoiac to sleep at night.  I have copied a subset of my photos to the new digikam user and compiled from source.  Now my originals can't be touched by that wild and impetuous digikam tester :-)
I even have the ability to regression test by comparing the copied files to the originals!

Thanks to all for the input!

Paul

----- "Lawrence Plug" wrote:
I'm suggesting that the svn digikam be run as a different user,
which would allow for a different digikam root (pointing to the
copy, so the OPs original remain 'safe').

I don't think its possible to have two instances on the same user
session. The KDE4 digikam is said to be more flexible in roots
(my understanding) but I don't know if it will address
'multiple-instance' issue.  I haven't compiled it yet.

cheers
L


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