Linux academy: Part three - Multimedia freedom

Manage photos
Google’s Picasa is an easy-to-use application for organising and touching up digital photos.

Browse to http://picasa.google.com/linux, click on the download link and install the rpm version.

Run the application from the K Menu, choosing Multimedia, then Graphics, and finally Picasa.

On first run, Picasa offers to scan your computer for pictures. We suggest the ‘Only scan the Desktop’ option, otherwise it will find images such as those used by applications as icons.

Attach a USB camera and import photos. After connecting the camera, choose Picasa’s Import From option from the File menu. Select GPhoto2 Camera to browse and import images.

Picasa has excellent editing options to crop and straighten images and to fix red-eye and contrast problems. Picasa’s Windows origins give it a strange appearance, and it has limitations.

A great open-source alternative is digikam, which you can install from Mandriva’s Software Management system. Digikam features a more extensive range of touch-up tools, which performed smoothly in our tests.

Deal with audio formats
Linux is an excellent operating system for audio. The first thing to check is that the Lame mp3 encoder is installed. This does not come with Mandriva Free because of patent issues, but you can use Mandriva’s Software Management utility to install it if you have added the plf sources, as covered in part two of this series. Select the Lame and liblame packages. Kaudiocreator is a cd ripper, and KsCD is for playing CDs. Check that Amarok is installed, as it will manage your digital library.

The first step is to add music using Kaudiocreator. Pop a CD into your drive. Mandriva will show a dialogue asking what you want to do. Select Extract and Encode Audio Tracks. This opens Kaudiocreator. Click on Settings – Configure Kaudiocreator.

Most of the default settings are fine, but the Encoder section defaults to Ogg, which is a high-quality open-source audio format, but not supported by the iPod or most mp3 players. We suggest using Lame.

Further Lame configuration is done by clicking on Configure and editing the command line; but the default is sensible. Exit the settings with OK, then click on File followed by Rip selection and finally Rip CD to start conversion.

Once the conversion is complete, start Amarok from the K Menu. From the Settings menu, choose Configure Amarok and then Collection. Check the home folder and click on OK. Choose Rescan Collection from the Tools menu. Amarok will find the CD you have converted. To play music, right-click on the track in the collection and choose Append to Playlist. Then click on the Play button.