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My partner would like something similar to iPhoto for linux. The bigger 
photo managers require Gnome or KDE but I found one called MaPiVi that 
uses a few command-line tools from Image Magick (to do minor editing such 
as crop, adjust colors), and parts of libjpeg (for resizing and rotating 
jpegs), and also requires perl and perl/tk.

The precompiled Windows version is 4 MB (plus an additional 400K basic 
package with some perl modules in it and instructions).  Windows 
supposedly already has perl, as do bigger linuxes. The instructions for 
Windows are far from clear, especially since they tell you that all the 
pieces are already included in most linuxes.  (Someone cut and pasted from 
the linux section?).

tk is an extension to perl for creating GUIs, that must be added 
separately as a Tk.pm module not in the perl.tgz package, available from 
CPAN (after installing the perl package, or at least register.pm in 
addition to the minimal set of .pm files that I already have on my 
computer for compiling something else).  There is a CPAN.pm perl module 
that handles the downloads. (For Windows type ppm at command line).  I 
should type while online:

perl -MCPAN -e shell
(here it complained about ./warnings/register.pm which I don't have)
install Bundle::CPAN
reload cpan
install Tk

Steven or anyone else, would you like to tackle this compilation?
The full perl takes up at least 5MB.  I would continue to just add missing 
pieces instead.

Or can someone recommend another photo manager that lets you organize 
photos and do rotating, resizing and cropping from within the program? 
My partner would prefer something smaller and simpler than iPhoto that 
lets him keep photos in whatever directory he chooses rather than one big 
library, not keep photo information in three places (this one keeps it all 
in the original file), and not display thumbnails of all his photos every 
time he starts the program (wasting hundreds of M of memory, the suggested 
solution being add another 256MB RAM).  He would like to display 
thumbnails of just what is in a particular small directory.  He wants to 
edit only file name, date and time apart from the image itself. Does not 
need it to send photos as emails or upload to or make webpages (MaPiVi 
does HTML too) or wallpaper, or print.  Just organize, make thumbnails, 
and minor editing.  Only jpegs.

There are many linux photo managers listed at

http://www.linuxappfinder.com/graphics/photomanagers

They sort by rating, and Digikam (KDE) was first, followed by MaPiVi 
(perl/Tk), KFlikr (KDE, upload to Flikr), Picasa (WINE), blueMarine 
(java), F-Spot (Gtk - GNOME), Lphoto (Qt, python,, Linspire, domain name 
expired), jBrout (python, Gtk - rotates but does not resize), ImgSeek (Qt, 
python), flPhoto (FLTK toolkit needed - does much more including redeye 
and other image formats, requires gPhoto to import photos from camera, 
prints)....Gallery (web-based album, uses PHP and also Image Magick, 
netpbm, libjpeg programs to manage and edit), KoffeePhoto (java, 1GHz 
processor).

I don't want KDE or GNOME or WINE or java.  Does Gtk imply GNOME?  Would 
php (Gallery), python/Qt (ImgSeek) be smaller/simpler than perl/tk?

Gallery seems relatively small (3.7MB download for minimal tar.gz and you 
can download netpbm and imagemagick and other things as modules).

Many of these are precompiled for Debian or Ubuntu or OpenSuSE (probably 
recent versions which need recent computers).

Personally I would just use zgv (or xv) and netpbm (which can rotate, 
crop, resize, change colors, but you need to think while using it).  He 
wants to crop with a mouse.  xv can make thumbnails but again, you need to 
think (you tell it to make them).  Could one combine xv with Image Magick 
(which I have not used), both run inside X?  I have the libjpeg programs 
(for rotating and resizing).  He would ideally like the option of seeing 
only the cropped part of a photo rather than the whole photo with a 
rectangle over it (and background parts lighter or darker).

He does not need GIMP for editing.  There are probably some much smaller 
paint programs for linux anyway, for removing red-eye.

Sindi Keesan