How To Install Picasa 3.8 In Ubuntu Linux

It seems a lot of people are using Picasa under Ubuntu (which is a bit of surprise to me - I would have though people prefere gThumb or digiKam). But Picasa for Linux is really old - 3.0 - while starting with version 3.6, Picasa has a really interesting feature: face recognition; and that might be very valuable to some. Also, Picasa 3.8 comes with a Batch Upload new feature as well as the ability to edit images in Picnik (online image editor) and Face Movie (unfortunately Face Movie doesn't work in Linux; but you can create movies from your photos in Linux using PhotoFilmStrip).

The latest Picasa version - 3.8 - is not that easy to install so I though I'd post about installing Picasa 3.8 under Ubuntu with simple copy/paste commands (except one step in which you'll have to install something visually).

Sure, you can simply install the Picasa 3.8 Windows binaries and directly run it under Wine, but Picasa 3.8 will lack Linux integration (with Gnome, KDE, etc.) such as:

• Camera/media detection integrated with Gnome/KDE.
• Mozilla/Firefox browser integration done via a plugin.
• picasa:// urls work in Firefox 3.
• Downloading albums from Picasa Web Albums launches faster.
• Xinerama support.

(Info provided by Google)

Install Picasa 3.8 over the original Picasa 3.0 for Linux.

Step 1: Ubuntu Lucid, Karmic, Jaunty, Intrepid and Hardy (Maverick users: skip this step since the latest Wine version is already in the Maverick repositories)

- Ubuntu Karmic and Lucid:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-wine/ppa

- Ubuntu Jaunty, Intrepid and Hardy:

echo "deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/ubuntu-wine/ppa/ubuntu  $(lsb_release -sc) main" | sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list
sudo apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys F9CB8DB0

Step 2: Install WINE

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install wine

Step 3: Add the Google Testing PPA

sudo sh -c "echo 'deb http://dl.google.com/linux/deb/ testing non-free' >> /etc/apt/sources.list"
sudo apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys 7FAC5991

Step 4: Install Picasa 3.0

Yes, Picasa 3.0, but we'll update it in the next step:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install picasa

Step 5: Download and install Picasa 3.8 for Windows

cd ~/Desktop && wget http://dl.google.com/picasa/picasa38-setup.exe
chmod +x ~/Desktop/picasa38-setup.exe #this is required for Lucid and Maverick to be able to run the exe file

Then double click the picasa38-setup.exe file on your desktop and install Picasa 3.8 with the default settings.

Step 6: Now all we have to do is copy the Picasa 3.8 files over 3.0 using the following command:

sudo cp -r ~/.wine/drive_c/Program\ Files/Google/Picasa3/* /opt/google/picasa/3.0/wine/drive_c/Program\ Files/Google/Picasa3/

Now run Picasa 3.8 from Applications > Graphics > Picasa > Picasa.


Important note: Don't click the "Places" button as it will freeze Picasa 3.8 and it will fail to start again!

Initially this post was about Picasa 3.6 but I've updated it to the latest Picasa 3.8!

Tutorial adapted from try{}catch{} (Thanks!)