[Digikam-users] Too slow metadata writing with exiv2 and Nikon - how to solve?

[Emil Persson]

I am an fan of Digikam since 2 years and now I experience severe troubles
downloading pictures from Nikon D5000 and metadata writing inside Digikam
(1.2.0).
Downloading takes ages (~3 minutes for 1 pic 6Mb), writing metadata to pic
inside
Digikam also takes unacceptably long time.
This makes Digikam useless (too bad) and I really want to find out a
solution.
I know other posts have been discussing similar issues but I have not seen
any
finally solving answers.

Parden my newbie language related to *nix operations and installations. I am
learning.
Maybe some of my questions should be placed in other forums but the problem
IS related
to Digikam since it uses exiv2 libraries. Being a Java-developer on mostly
win32,
*nix commands and it's universes are still terrifying to me, though
tempting.

My environment:
32bit 2.6.32-22-generic Ubuntu 10.04 LTS
Nikon D5000 autodetected (mode PTP)
Digikam (1.2.0)
Exiv2 (0.19)

On a fresh installation of Kubuntu (10.0.4) Digikam from KPackageKit is
using exiv2 (0.19-1).
The dependencies seems to be:
Digikam uses libkexiv2-8 (4:4-4.2-Oubuntu4) uses libexiv2-6 (0.19-1) uses
exiv2 (0.19-1)

Found hints to a solution:
- Exiv2 (0.20) has a bug fix (since 0.19) that solves the metadata/Nikon
problem:
http://www.exiv2.org/changelog.html and
http://dev.exiv2.org/issues/show/0000677
- Suggestions have been posted to downgrade from exiv2 (0.19) to exiv2
(0.18.2)
but this has not solved the problem according to:
http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.kde.digikam.user/12166/match=exiv2+nikon
- On the Digikam site it says that using an exiv2 lib > 0.11, but maybe this
post
is outdated, since exiv2 is in 0.20, and 0.19 obviously had Nikon related
bugs.
http://www.digikam.org/drupal/node/177

Questions:

1. How can I install Digikam from KPackageKit and make sure it uses exiv2
version 0.20? In my system 0.19 is the only available from KPackageKit.

2.1. Is the solution to compile Digikam myself and specify version 0.20 of
Exiv2 in
the compile?

2.2. If so, must I then also compile Exiv2 libraries (both libkexiv2,
libexiv2 and exiv2)
for the digikam build to succeed?
[note. I tried compiling Digikam before I saw that KPackageKit distributed
1.2.0.
The make and install was successful but when started Digikam did not show
any pictures
and there were no themes to choose from (probably I did something terribly
wrong).]

2.3. Can I have multiple versions of Exiv2 installed on my Kubuntu (I don't
want to
compile every program that uses Exiv2 (a lot).

2.3.1 Is it at all possible to compile Digikam with exiv2 (0.20)? I suspect
Digikam
doesn't have a compiletime dependency to an explicit version of Exiv2,
rather that it
uses some version (> version n) available. Is it so?

2.3.1. If the above is possible - how should I proceed to install two
versions? Where
could the newer version be installed? Directions to head for?
libkexiv2 seems to be installed in /usr/share/kde4/apps/libkexiv2/.. and
/usr/lib/..
Is there then a way to install a 'user-specific' version in another place
and make sure
Digikam uses this version? How to do this?

3. If downgrading exiv2 IS a solution (spite what was mentioned in post
12166),
how can I then do that? If I uninstall the exiv2 libraries through
KPackageKit my system
becomes stalled (I tried). So - how to downgrade in a controlled manner,
and, preferably,
only for Digikam?

4. Is there some other way I can try to make Digikam play well with Exiv2? I
have no clue.

5. Must I wait to use Digikam with my Nikon camera until Ubuntu releases a
package
upgrade for Exiv2? I hope not.


best regards and thank you in advance
/Emil Persson, Stockholm

And you developer contributing to Digikam's source: Thank you for an awsome
job!
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