K10D PEF files under Linux. All Ahead Full!

I don't know if anyone else is interested, but I have just finished setting up my system to process PEF RAW files under Linux.

I'm slowly weaning myself off Windows since I have made the decision that I will not purchase Vista. In related news Windows is now officially my secondary operating system. I can now do anything which I do regularly as well or better penguin powered than under Windows.

It was actually remarkably easy, all the files I used had pretty good walkthrough installs provided you are tech-savvy enough to avoid panic at the first sight of a command line.

I'm using Ubuntu Linux, and since I have not been able to find a thumbnail display program which works well and does what I want it to (ie, display the thumbnails and nothing else!), I am using DCRAW to extract the embedded JPGs from the PEF files. I have writen what is quite possibly the worlds shortest useful bash script to do this for me and place them in a directory called "thumbs".

I flick through these and decide which ones I want to edit, then use GIMP with the UFRAW plugin to open the RAW files for editing, do what I feel I need to do and save as .xcf or JPG or whatever else seems a good idea at the time. UFRAW's controls are perhaps not the best, but they are functional and seem to produce good output. If you don't like them and feel like shelling out some cash then Bibble is also quite happy with K10D PEF files and is penguin friendly. I might well buy bibble in the long run, but for now I'm making do with the freebies. If only there were a Silkypix for Linux I would be sorely tempted.

The packages in Ubuntu's package manager are too out of date to read K10D PEF's, so I had to build UFRAW and DCRAW from source. This also entailed some swearing and cursing because of unfilled dependencies and missing compilers, but the help files were fairly specific about what needed to be present before the install would work.

I would like to switch to linux completely as well, but since I didn't find a single device like the spyder, display 2, huey, etc which are supported by linux distro's or by the manufacturers I will have to stick to windows for the time being.

yes the lack of calibration tools is annoying, I would like to get something but since there is no Linux support I can't.

Still, 5 years ago there was almost no Linux on the desktop and it was pretty much impossible to get commercial software for Linux. This is changing at an ever increasing rate. It is my hope that we will see drivers for Spyder or the like soon.

I'm running Winspire on an old PC to get experience of Linux. The next new PC or laptop I buy will have some flavour of Linux as the OS. I am looking forward to the conversation with the saleperson with interest.



The problem is that Mickeysoft has prevented virtually all PC manufacturers from selling "bare" machines, on the grounds that people who buy such a machine "must" be going to install a hookey version of windoze.

there have been successful actions where people have been refunded the OEM value of the M$ licence they didn't want and never used. I can't remember the details off hand but might be worth a google.

Mongoose

Glad you got UFRAW and DCRAW working. I tried building DCRAW from source a couple of weeks ago but met with catastrophic dependency problems to the extent that, if I hadn't had my system pinned, I'm pretty sure I would have broken something fatally. Haven't even tried building UFRAW and, as you say, the binary packages in Debian stable are woefully out of date.

As an alternative, I've been using Lightzone for just over a month now and find it pretty good apart from a few performance issues. In addition to the editing facilities, it provides a graphical file browser that displays PEF and DNG files from my K10D and a ready compiled binary of DCRAW. Any budding Linux users that fancy trying DCRAW, but don't want to build from source, could use the version that comes with Lightzone. Or just use Lightzone!

On the Windows refund issue, there's been quite a bit of discussion on Slashdot about a chap in Germany who successfully got a refund from Dell for an unwanted WinXP install. See http://linux.slashdot.org/linux/07/03/25/1944209.shtml

Adrian

amusingly, I had no issues at all with dependencies for DCRAW (to the extent that I didn't even realise it had any short of a compiler) but lightzone flat out refuses to work on my system.

That's the problem with there being so many distros, even Debian and Ubuntu (Ubuntu being Debian based for the uninitiated) can behave this differently for no reason which is readily fathomable by the (though I say it myself) slightly above average user.

Guys!

Get with the picture and buy a Mac. With a Unix base, running on an Intel chipset, many things are now possible.

ie. The latest Mac OSX.5 will have an emulator called "Parallels" built into the OS - and with parallels you can run MULTIPLE OSs.

I have an Intel iMac, with Parallels running one of either SuSe or XP Pro in a window on my Mac desktop.

As an aside, Lightroom is perhaps the best one-stop editor and archive app I've used - A Mac with Lightroom is unbeatable. I hear that Aperture is good too.

lol I can't even afford a recent PC let alone a Mac, keep on spending all my money on camera gear!

I too would recommend people trying Mac's if they think they would like Linux. You get all the security of linux, with the ease of use of Mac.

I was using Linux for the last 6-7 years. Only switched to macs last year when the old machines started to slowly die. I didn't want to buy a machine with windows on it and it's practically impossible to buy a good spec machine without windows, so bought Macs.

linux is for computer geeks
macs are for photography geeks
windoze is for masochists.

while have some geek, and masochistic tendancys, I rather spend my time making images, not fixing pcs.

get a Dell and spec it out to comparable specs with comparable quality parts and you'll realize that macs Are infact equal, and sometimes less money than pc's.
in car terms try to remember Mac don't make yugo's, or Ladas, so leave stripped out bargian basent junk pcs out of the equation when comparison shopping.

Hell may be about to freeze over http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6506027.stm

can't say anything about that Don, since I have never bought a PC in my life.

I've bought a good few motherboards, graphics cards, CPUs and RAM modules, but never a PC.

I could (and at some point will have to) upgrade my current system to a dual core AthlonX2 ~4200 with 2GB of RAM and have change from £600. I don't buy rubbish, but neither do I buy stuff I don't need, so for now twin Athlon XP1900s with 2GB of RAM is doing the trick. I could do with a bit more CPU speed but with my last major overhaul having been in 2002 I'll have to replace most of the system. Still even if cost wasn't a factor there aren't more than 2 other people on this planet I'd trust working on my PC, and no employee of Dell or Apple has ever been on that list.

You don't need a new Mac! I have a 450MHz Powermac with 1 GB memory, it works perfectly with heavy graphic apps, Portfolio, Photoshop etc.

In the UK you have http://www.2ndchancepc.co.uk/maccpus.html

Mac has both worlds Mac and Unix, what more can one want?

well my twin athlon 1900+ with 2GB of RAM also does the trick quite nicely, so you are right, I don't need a mac.