Ubuntu / Linux news and application reviews.

gThumb is an image organizer/viewer that can export images to PicasaWeb, Facebook, Flickr or Photobucket, comes with some basic image editing features such as cropping, resizing, rotation, image enhancing, has video support, supports WebP images, can import images from digital camera and many other cool features.

gThumb 3.3.2 in Ubuntu 14.04 (under GNOME Shell)

Ubuntu 14.04 had gThumb 3.3.1 in its official repositories at some point but because starting with version 3.3.0, the application uses header bars (also known as client side decorations) and they don't work properly under Unity, gThumb was downgraded to version 3.2.7. And that's ok for Unity but how about Ubuntu GNOME and Linux Mint 17 (with Cinnamon 2.2.x) users?

Well, to make it easier to install, I've uploaded the latest gThumb 3.3.2 in the WebUpd8 gThumb PPA for Ubuntu GNOME 14.04 and Linux Mint 17 with Cinnamon users.

Because gThumb 3.3.x uses header bars, the package from the WebUpd8 gThumb PPA should only be used by GNOME Shell (Ubuntu GNOME) and Linux Mint 17 with Cinnamon users! If you try to use it under other desktop environments, you'll encounter various visual glitches - for instance, under Unity, gThumb will look broken with the default Ambiance theme: no window titlebar and weird looking header bars, no window shadow, etc.; with Numix, the header bars look ok but the window doesn't have any shadows and also, unless you remove the overlay scrollbars package, some parts of the gThumb window are transparent. So only use gThumb from the WebUpd8 gThumb PPA under Ubuntu GNOME 14.04 (if you use GNOME Shell)!


Changes in gThumb 3.3.2 (released yesterday) since 3.2.7:
  • Use a GtkHeaderBar instead of a menu and a toolbar;
  • Use dark theme;
  • Better raw image support, using libraw instead of libopenraw;
  • Image viewer: show a frame around the image; use an overview window to scroll the image instead of the scrollbars; better quality for zoomed out images;
  • Faster image loader for big images;
  • Use symbolic icons everywhere;
  • Added a custom tiff loader;
  • Add a rating-based filter;
  • Image viewer buttons: added fit to width;
  • Added navigation buttons to show the next and the previous file;
  • Use a dialog to rename folders and catalogs;
  • Allow to find duplicates in catalogs;
  • Much more - for complete changes, see the news files from HERE.

Further more, gThumb in Ubuntu is built without Clutter support - this is enabled for the gThumb package available in the WebUpd8 gThumb PPA, allowing the application to use some fancy transition effects for the slideshow. To use transition effects with the gThumb slideshow, from the gThumb preferences, on the "Viewer" tab, select the transition you want to use. Start the slideshow using F5.

Also, the PPA package is built with using libraw for better raw image support.


Install gThumb 3.3.x in Ubuntu GNOME 14.04 / 14.10 (GNOME Shell) or Linux Mint 17 with Cinnamon


To add the WebUpd8 gThumb PPA and install the latest gThumb 3.3.2 in Ubuntu GNOME 14.04 / 14.10 or Linux Mint 17 with Cinnamon (so only for GNOME Shell and Cinnamon 2.2.x users!! see above why), use the following commands:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/gthumb
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install gthumb


How to revert the changes


If for some reason you don't like gThumb 3.3.x (you want to switch from GNOME Shell to Unity, etc.) and want to go back to the gThumb version available in the official Ubuntu 14.04 repositories (3:3.3.1.is.3.2.7-0ubuntu1 so version 3.2.7), use the following commands to purge the WebUpd8 gThumb PPA and downgrade the application:
sudo apt-get install ppa-purge
sudo ppa-purge ppa:webupd8team/gthumb