Darktable 5.2.1 and Linux

[Mr Bolton]

A cursory search revealed other posts about various Linux fauna here, so I decided I would run this by the forum, hope that's OK because it's not Windows or Mac.

I had Darktable running well on my System76 laptop with latest version of PopOS. Foolishly, I allowed its Flatpack based installer to update it without reading about any potential gotchas. The update broke Darktable, and of course this happens when I've got photos that I'd like to upload to the Socials..

Before I did a clean OS refresh, I was having some graphics card issues that seemed to begin right after the DT update. I don't know if that was circumstance, coincidence, or enemy action however I know I tried to uninstall/reinstall DT three times before I did the OS refresh. I followed the helpful suggestions on DT's forum pages about deleting some config and cache data, also no go.

What's interesting is that, even though I had installed DT, originally years ago, using the System76 provided installer system, I was never able to launch it from a shell. The command was never found, even though I could run it from the icon at any time.

So now I've got a refreshed OS and everything else seems to be working well, I feel I may now somewhat safely assume my system is OK. Since I've had so many issues with the Flatpack installed version, should I use an appimage version? Can I get a Darktable which can be installed with apt-get install?

I haven't done anything with it yet, since the OS refresh, I thought it best to see if I could find other users who got around this problem, which seems to be an incompatibility with OpenCL, that's made worse by Flatpack installation. I think I won't do the Flatpack way again. Other than that, I'm no sure how to proceed.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. A lovely bonus would be to still use my existing Darktable database, so I don't have to import everything again.

 

[Robert Zanatta]

You could try snap - snap install darktable.

 

[FujiJon]

A cursory search revealed other posts about various Linux fauna here, so I decided I would run this by the forum, hope that's OK because it's not Windows or Mac.

I had Darktable running well on my System76 laptop with latest version of PopOS. Foolishly, I allowed its Flatpack based installer to update it without reading about any potential gotchas. The update broke Darktable, and of course this happens when I've got photos that I'd like to upload to the Socials..

Before I did a clean OS refresh, I was having some graphics card issues that seemed to begin right after the DT update. I don't know if that was circumstance, coincidence, or enemy action however I know I tried to uninstall/reinstall DT three times before I did the OS refresh. I followed the helpful suggestions on DT's forum pages about deleting some config and cache data, also no go.

What's interesting is that, even though I had installed DT, originally years ago, using the System76 provided installer system, I was never able to launch it from a shell. The command was never found, even though I could run it from the icon at any time.

So now I've got a refreshed OS and everything else seems to be working well, I feel I may now somewhat safely assume my system is OK. Since I've had so many issues with the Flatpack installed version, should I use an appimage version? Can I get a Darktable which can be installed with apt-get install?

I haven't done anything with it yet, since the OS refresh, I thought it best to see if I could find other users who got around this problem, which seems to be an incompatibility with OpenCL, that's made worse by Flatpack installation. I think I won't do the Flatpack way again. Other than that, I'm no sure how to proceed.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. A lovely bonus would be to still use my existing Darktable database, so I don't have to import everything again.

You could try a development version from here. I have been using the development for maybe 2-3 years, no issues.

Bonus: they recently added capture sharpening as part of the demosaic module. There's a thread about it on pixls.us, and Boris Hajdukovic recently did a video about it here (the first few minutes).

 

[Mr Bolton]

A cursory search revealed other posts about various Linux fauna here, so I decided I would run this by the forum, hope that's OK because it's not Windows or Mac.

I had Darktable running well on my System76 laptop with latest version of PopOS. Foolishly, I allowed its Flatpack based installer to update it without reading about any potential gotchas. The update broke Darktable, and of course this happens when I've got photos that I'd like to upload to the Socials..

Before I did a clean OS refresh, I was having some graphics card issues that seemed to begin right after the DT update. I don't know if that was circumstance, coincidence, or enemy action however I know I tried to uninstall/reinstall DT three times before I did the OS refresh. I followed the helpful suggestions on DT's forum pages about deleting some config and cache data, also no go.

What's interesting is that, even though I had installed DT, originally years ago, using the System76 provided installer system, I was never able to launch it from a shell. The command was never found, even though I could run it from the icon at any time.

So now I've got a refreshed OS and everything else seems to be working well, I feel I may now somewhat safely assume my system is OK. Since I've had so many issues with the Flatpack installed version, should I use an appimage version? Can I get a Darktable which can be installed with apt-get install?

I haven't done anything with it yet, since the OS refresh, I thought it best to see if I could find other users who got around this problem, which seems to be an incompatibility with OpenCL, that's made worse by Flatpack installation. I think I won't do the Flatpack way again. Other than that, I'm no sure how to proceed.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. A lovely bonus would be to still use my existing Darktable database, so I don't have to import everything again.

You could try a development version from here. I have been using the development for maybe 2-3 years, no issues.

Bonus: they recently added capture sharpening as part of the demosaic module. There's a thread about it on pixls.us, and Boris Hajdukovic recently did a video about it here (the first few minutes).

Thank you! I will look into that. I don't care if its a dev version, as long as it works and doesn't crash/lose my import database. Which happened a couple times in the past with old DT upgrades. (think pre-V4).

 

[toktik]

A cursory search revealed other posts about various Linux fauna here, so I decided I would run this by the forum, hope that's OK because it's not Windows or Mac.

I had Darktable running well on my System76 laptop with latest version of PopOS. Foolishly, I allowed its Flatpack based installer to update it without reading about any potential gotchas. The update broke Darktable, and of course this happens when I've got photos that I'd like to upload to the Socials..

Before I did a clean OS refresh, I was having some graphics card issues that seemed to begin right after the DT update. I don't know if that was circumstance, coincidence, or enemy action however I know I tried to uninstall/reinstall DT three times before I did the OS refresh. I followed the helpful suggestions on DT's forum pages about deleting some config and cache data, also no go.

What's interesting is that, even though I had installed DT, originally years ago, using the System76 provided installer system, I was never able to launch it from a shell. The command was never found, even though I could run it from the icon at any time.

So now I've got a refreshed OS and everything else seems to be working well, I feel I may now somewhat safely assume my system is OK. Since I've had so many issues with the Flatpack installed version, should I use an appimage version? Can I get a Darktable which can be installed with apt-get install?

I haven't done anything with it yet, since the OS refresh, I thought it best to see if I could find other users who got around this problem, which seems to be an incompatibility with OpenCL, that's made worse by Flatpack installation. I think I won't do the Flatpack way again. Other than that, I'm no sure how to proceed.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. A lovely bonus would be to still use my existing Darktable database, so I don't have to import everything again.

I'm using Kubuntu and haven't run into any obvious issues with the Flatpak version of darktable, but I had an ongoing problem with both Firefox and Thunderbird when installed as Flatpaks. The problem was intermittently losing the ability to see my installed printers (only Firefox and Thunderbird). Once I moved from Flatpak to .deb installs for both programs the problem was resolved.

I like the idea of Flatpaks, but I have experienced a range of issues with them, typically related to the permissions needed to execute all functions properly. I now prefer to use non-Flatpak versions of applications. I have not evaluated Snaps enough to see if they are more reliable than Flatpaks.

 

[XiaoDeer]

Gotta say I dislike these generic installers like Flatpack et al.

They typically load a ton of additional dependencies.

It's one of the reasons I run Manjaro with full access to the AUR which isn't perfect but it's pretty darn good.

 

[Mr Bolton]

Gotta say I dislike these generic installers like Flatpack et al.

They typically load a ton of additional dependencies.

It's one of the reasons I run Manjaro with full access to the AUR which isn't perfect but it's pretty darn good.

I'm no longer Linux geek enough to do this. I've never heard of Snap so I can't say if it works or how well on my system. I'm willing to give it a try, however I think I'd like to install Darktable from a PPA if I can.

I really appreciate the advice found in this thread.

 

[FujiJon]

Thank you! I will look into that. I don't care if its a dev version, as long as it works and doesn't crash/lose my import database. Which happened a couple times in the past with old DT upgrades. (think pre-V4).

You can make a copy of /home/yourname/.config/darktable as a backup before installing a new version.

I've not had any database issues - yet - using the development version.

 

[Wolle Kuusamo]

I'm running Darktable 5.2.1 on Debian via AppImage. It's perfect. You don't have to care about dependencies and the software is up-to-date.

Only weak point (in my eyes): updates of Darktable databases only work from older to newer versions.

 

[CAcreeks]

I don't like Flatpak because the installed packages are much larger than apt-installed packages. Also it lengthens boot-up time. On the plus side, you get updates more frequently. I believe the Ubuntu repository has an old "stable" version of Darktable – no support for new camera models. That's why many people prefer the development build.

Alternatives like AppImage and snap have the same drawbacks as Flatpak.

Regarding command line, you just need to search for the Darktable program's location and add it to your PATH environment.

I'm not sure that this PPT solution still works. It's dated 2023 and I haven't tried it lately, but it did work when I last ran Linux Mint.
https://itsfoss.com/install-darktable-ubuntu/

Never heard of System76. For PopOS help, you might want to visit the Reddit subreddit.

A cursory search revealed other posts about various Linux fauna here, so I decided I would run this by the forum, hope that's OK because it's not Windows or Mac.

I had Darktable running well on my System76 laptop with latest version of PopOS. Foolishly, I allowed its Flatpack based installer to update it without reading about any potential gotchas. The update broke Darktable, and of course this happens when I've got photos that I'd like to upload to the Socials..

Before I did a clean OS refresh, I was having some graphics card issues that seemed to begin right after the DT update. I don't know if that was circumstance, coincidence, or enemy action however I know I tried to uninstall/reinstall DT three times before I did the OS refresh. I followed the helpful suggestions on DT's forum pages about deleting some config and cache data, also no go.

What's interesting is that, even though I had installed DT, originally years ago, using the System76 provided installer system, I was never able to launch it from a shell. The command was never found, even though I could run it from the icon at any time.

So now I've got a refreshed OS and everything else seems to be working well, I feel I may now somewhat safely assume my system is OK. Since I've had so many issues with the Flatpack installed version, should I use an appimage version? Can I get a Darktable which can be installed with apt-get install?

I haven't done anything with it yet, since the OS refresh, I thought it best to see if I could find other users who got around this problem, which seems to be an incompatibility with OpenCL, that's made worse by Flatpack installation. I think I won't do the Flatpack way again. Other than that, I'm no sure how to proceed.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. A lovely bonus would be to still use my existing Darktable database, so I don't have to import everything again.