[Digikam-users] Re: Changing Digikam environment

[Martin (KDE)]

Am 30.10.2010 17:12, schrieb Marie-Noëlle Augendre:
>
>
> 2010/10/24 Martin (KDE) <kde at fahrendorf.de <mailto:kde at fahrendorf.de>>
>
>     Am Samstag, 23. Oktober 2010 schrieb Marie-Noëlle Augendre:
>      > I intend to switch quite soon from Ubuntu to Fedora (Digikam 1.5 is
>      > already available with this distro).
>      > This will be the first time I'll desinstall a system to put another
>      > one in its place. Is there anything I should know before doing
>      > that, or will Digikam work "straight out of the box" with the new
>      > distribution and my current images?
>
>     If your path to the photos and your home files do not change, you will
>     not see any difference, it will run out of the box.
>
>     If you loose your home data, you loose all data only stored in the
>     digikam database only (like tags that are not stored in the photos
>     itself - this can be enabled/disabled in the configuration).
>
>
> I'd rather re-partition the disk, and go for ext4 instead of ext3 in the
> process. So, I guess I'll have to save the whole /home data, then reload
> them after the new distro installation.
> How will it go with Digikam?

It depends. You can configure where digikam stores the internal database 
files. If you used your home directory for this it is all you need to 
backup (besides your photos of course). If your photos are stored on 
your home directory as well, you are almost done. Just make sure, your 
path name does not change (or create a symlink) and on it goes.

>
>
>      >
>      > Additionally, as I will have two different computers with the same
>      > distribution, can I move my images and database to an external
>      > drive so I can use it with either computer?
>
>
>
>     So, for your external drive you can configure your digikam to store the
>     database to the external drive side by side with the photos. But
>     digikam will not work, if the external hard disk is not attached. If
>     you want/have to share your photos with others (like family members)
>     it may be a good idea to setup a small server for sharing not only
>     photos.
>
>     Martin
>
>
> I don't have to share with anybody.
> Just thinking about the most convenient way to use one photos base with
> two different computers. Obviously, one will be more used than the other
> one; but they could be using different distro and/or Digikam versions at
> the same time, as I could use one for testing before upgrading the other
> for example.

Using a external drive is one way. If you store your digikam database on 
the external drive as well this is ok. If you store the database on your 
home drive, you will lose all tags and additional information not stored 
in the photos itself (either because you have not done it, or because it 
is not possible - tags can not be stored in canon raw files).

I am not sure, how digikam handles extension to database layout in newer 
versions. If you try a new versions, the database may change in an 
incompatible way, so that an old digikam version is no longer able to 
read it. But this is wild guessing.

>
> Marie-Noëlle
>
>

Maritn