Klik Away...Picasa

klik has been developed by Simon Peter (a.k.a. "probono" in IRC), with the support of Niall Walsh ("bfree"), Jörg Schirottke ("Kano") and FreeNX's Fabian Franz ("fabianx")

To install applications via Klik, simply locate the app’s page on the Klik website and click on that big blue“download and run” button. Klik will download and leave a CMG (Compressed iMaGe) file for that app on your Desktop. To run the program, simply double-click that CMG file. Since the file contains the application and all it’s needed files and dependencies, you can place it anywhere on your computer and run it and it won’t interfere with your system files. If you decide you no longer want it, simply delete that CMG file. Its gone...



Well today I clicked on Picasa. At over 20 MB, Picasa is one of the biggest Compressed iMaGe's I ever down loaded. When I opened it Picasa automatically located all your pictures,even ones you forgot I and sorted them into visual albums organized by date with folder names you that I recognize. While not every feature in the original Windows version is implemented (yet), most are, and more are planned. Kanotix 2005-04 screen shot
Picasa began as the product of a Pasadena, California company by the same name. That company was founded in October, 2001. Google bought the company in May, 2004.

The Picasa Linux beta CMG release (as far as I see) currently lacks these features:
CD Burning
TiVo Export
Support for languages other than English
Hello™ instant picture chat

I ran it for a couple days in “Kanotix 2005-04” and it does indeed run. It scanned my 160 hard drive, finding all my pictures, and never crashed. I was able to print two in full color,rotate images, you name it. My K-mail even worked smoothly, and as slowly as in the windows version. I even here that future versions of Picasa will be true linux apps from the ground up. Linux users can hope.
Picasa is one of many programs found on the klik site. For most of the 4000+ packages available from the klik warehouse, the "download" consists of a "recipe". The recipe tells the klik client where to fetch the binaries from (in most cases .deb packages from the official Debian repositories), how to unpack them, and how to re-package and compress them into the final .cmg image. So the klik client does most of the work and builds its own .cmg file in most cases.

To quickly prepare your system for klik, install the klik client,please press Alt-F2 and paste:

wget klik.atekon.de/client/install -O -|sh

K)Ubuntu users, have to first run:

sudo apt-get install binutils libstdc++5 rpm gnome-about