I am rapt with Zorin 18 after being on Windows since the late 80s and Win7 since it came out but one program I need to run in Zorin is Irfanview and I cannot get it to behave. I did try Win10 once and was one of the victims of the update that formatted all drives other than C, an unforgivable error that MS repeated in November last year with Win11 so I will not go down the Win road ever again.
I have tried other distros and was underwhelmed with some and pleased with others but Zorin 18 stood out even before I saw the video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gL3lvECgces.
I have looked at many Linux graphics programs but nothing comes close to Iview for my total needs. Graphically GIMP will do everything I need and many many more things that I do not need but comparing the user interface Iview is like using a finger to kill an ant with no damage to the surrounds and GIMP is like using a large bore shotgun for the same purpose. Far too many keystrokes and too much like hard work.
There are several threads on using Irfanview in older versions of Zorin but they do not cover my problems. Likewise there is a website (Install IrfanView (WINE) on Linux | Snap Store) that shows many people using Iview on Zorin 18 so I know that it should work for me, so I strongly suspect this is finger trouble on my end.
" IrfanView is not natively available for Linux , but it can be run using Wine , a Windows compatibility layer.
Running IrfanView on Linux via Wine
Wine-based installation is the most common method. You can install IrfanView using:
Winetricks : Run winetricks -q irfanview to automate the setup (installs required DLLs like mfc42.dll ).
Manual installation : Download the Windows installer (iview460_setup.exe ), run it with wine , and install to a Wine prefix.
Snap package : Available via the Snap Store (sudo snap install irfanview ). However, some users report issues with UI scaling (e.g., tiny menus on 4K displays).
Alternative: Use Native Linux Image Viewers
Since IrfanView is proprietary and relies on Wine (which can break after system updates), many users prefer native alternatives:
XnView MP : Powerful, feature-rich, and cross-platform (not free).
nomacs : Open-source, lightweight, and closely mimics IrfanView’s workflow and keyboard shortcuts.
Gwenview : Integrated with KDE, fast, and supports batch processing.
gThumb : Simple, GNOME-friendly, and supports plugins.
qimgv : Lightweight, Qt-based, and ideal for quick viewing.
Key Considerations
Import settings/plugins : You can copy your Windows IrfanView Plugins folder and i_view32.ini /i_view64.ini files into the Wine directory (~/.wine/drive_c/Program Files/IrfanView/ ) to retain your custom setup.
Performance : While functional, Wine-based IrfanView may not be as stable or performant as native Linux apps, especially after system or Wine updates.
For the best experience, consider switching to nomacs or XnView MP if you want a reliable, native Linux solution with similar functionality.
I personally use Nomacs for my image viewer, and I like it.
And yep, Microslop was allowed to become a monopoly again, cause they paid off the government to look the other way, while they spy on people's data. Not only that, by your own witness account, they also format attached drives for no reason without your consent.
Hi @Ponce-De-Leon
I tried those and rejected them for various reasons.
If my memory is right
Gwenview did not have keyboard shortcuts and the batch processing lacked items I can easily do in Iview
qview did not work on my box - all I got was a black box with a header that said qview
XnView sounded good on write ups and some even called it Iview for Linux but I found a number of items that I do every session on Iview were either missing or possibly hidden by using different names for the same process. I did spend a couple of hours trying to do the things I do daily and failed but it is, at present, a possible option.
nomacs - I spent a long time (including looking on line for how to make it work for me) trying to do what should have been a ten second edit on a diagram and absolutely totally failed.
I have no doubt they are good programs for others with other needs but being well past 80 my learning curve is too steep on all of them but thank you for your input.
My apologies to all - I should have mentioned that I tried those as well as GIMP, Pinta, and Libre Office Draw in my OP. There are probably other options in the Zorin program offerings but I would rather try and get Iview up and running instead of getting more frustrated.
It was nice to see that the snapstore version I installed from the Zorin programs menu is known to have the tiny menu problem - yes my display is 4K. Makes me feel less like it was all my fault.
I have not come across winetracks so I will search on line on how to use it and give that a try asap but the next six weeks are going to be hard work family health wise so I may not get to it as fast as I would like. That said if it rains again tomorrow it will happen tomorrow. I will skip gThumb and qimgv for now as they sound like they may be too simple for my needs and I would rather try and get Iview working.
Again some things I should have been smart enough to put in my OP.
Most of the time I am processing ww2 or older documents that I have scanned myself but I am often sent (usually poor cell phone) photos that are weird colours and all different focal lengths and containing miscellaneous distortions. I also get sent what I would politely describe as rank amateur quality photos from overpaid so called professionals from a particular government archives site that people want made readable without massive eye strain and OCR'd.
Scantailor and similar programs want greyscale, 600dpi, TIFF, consistent height or width photos for black and white pages so I need to batch process that and simultaneously change the IMG-nnn.xxx or whatever to a sequential number. A simple single batch process in Iview. Often the "professional" and other photos need significant gamma correction or colours completely changed. The gamma can be done at the same time in many cases if the bad lighting is consistent. "Professional" photos of a page or diagram often need the colour from using the cheapest and nastiest light sources known to mankind edited out. For colour pages that is one page at a time if I want to recover something close to the original colours. I can fix the page distortions most times in Scantailor which comes in a native Linux version and ST also handles lighting, photos, picture density and a lot of the other problems. For ten years the Iview + ST system has worked so what I need is Iview or another program that does all that without needing a shotgun like GIMP to kill that ant.
After all that I PDF and OCR the file and post all my own work, and that from others who give me the OK, to non-commercial websites. Much of the stuff I am processing is becoming very rare and will be lost to mankind unless nuts like me do this - and I am just a very minor contributor.
Cheers
Mi
PS - I note you provided an AI answer. As an aviation safety manager I detest AI which is known in the industry by many names such as Always Incorrect, Abysmal Intelligence, Absolute Idiocy, etc. I have seen many many hundreds, if not several thousands, of AI generated items relating to aviation and only one was worth spending more than ten seconds reading or viewing.
I have long threatened to drop MS but always heard Linux was too hard. If I can change over in my mid 80's then so can anyone.
My bro in law is crying because he got a new Win 11 computer and the vendor copied all his thousands of photos, files, etc for him but he did not find that all were kept on the cloud for several weeks. He deleted everything off the cloud thinking they were backups and next day had a major medical event. Three months later he got back on his computer and naturally he had lost the whole flaming lot - unrecoverable. Luckily he kept the old laptop so still has all except the recent stuff.
I do not trust the cloud for any of my files and do not trust MS because, as the saying goes, if you get caught twice by the same thing you are an idiot. Why anyone trusts the cloud is beyond me.
If you are old enough you will remember when Hotmail purged all mail over x days old without warning people and all the screaming that followed from people on holidays where they took photos and emailed them to themselves to free up space on their cameras SD card or the people and non profits that used hotmail as their mail archive. I was not caught but know many who were and that to me is a clear warning against using the cloud for storage.
Excellent rant...
I was one of those caught out by MS's deletion of emails, ones which I look back on with fondness but which disappeared unexpectedly and without warning. Now that I'm permanently on Linux I have emptied all my Google Drive & Onedrive photos & data, changed all my important email addresses to Proton Mail, and use Proton products, for which I'm happy to pay in order not to be the product.
Apologies for A.I. but it was early hours after dog woke me up to go into garden, he has diabetes and I couldn't get to sleep.
There has been some good reports of other Windows apps working in Winboat, I would see if you can get IrfanView working with that.
I've just found out that darktable has keyboard shortcuts enabled:
I don't know if they have keyboard shortcuts, but there is also Ristretto and Shotwell.
I was extremely sorry to hear about your brother's shoddy treatment and subsequent health issues. On a side note the coordinator of our local Linux User Group told me that many years ago a trainee medical professional at University submitted a study she conducted on how using Windows can make you ill and it was accepted and they passed their training.
I tried Winetricks and there is no visible difference yet but I have not copied those windows files off the old box yet. I will update once that is done. It was interesting to see what other software Winetricks can load. MS Word 2003!!! I am happy with FreeOffice thank you. Does everything I need in a nice simple layout.
Darktable looks like an excellent program to process photos and I will look at it later when I need to do more negative scans. It also has a lot of videos on line for tuition which is great.. Ristretto and Shotwell cannot do most of the things I need and video tutorials appear to be non existent.
I consider my BiLs computer problems self inflicted as he failed to RTFM (Read The Freeking Manual) OR look at some on line help videos about Onedrive AND to discuss OneDrive with the vendor AND direct where he wanted his files stored with the vendor AND to ensure that the files were also on his computer. Being a bit of a curmudgeon I asked him why he did not do the latter if nothing else and he admitted he ASSUMED. Assume means make an as* out of you and me. Health issues at our time of life are just another part of life unfortunately. He has worse than me even tho he is ten years younger. Unfortunately my wife potentially has the same issues and has enough issues for both of us. Its still better than the alternative.
I was well ahead of you with dumping Onedrive and Google Drive. Because of the hotmail debacle I never used any cloud service with the exception of Dropbox which I used for a very short time to transfer large files. Once they became user unfriendly to use I changed to WeTransfer but recently they have gone conscription mode so I need another file transfer method. I will look for one as soon as I need one. Maybe next week, maybe next year.
I use my ISP's mail at present but will be moving later in the year and changing ISP. Thanks for the heads up on Proton so I will look at it then as an alternative to getting my own website just for mail like several others I know do. Aus domain name and site charges are foul but the EU domain names and sites charges are very reasonable.
Hi Steve @XxXxX
Krita is a great drawing package with lots of nice features that I will never use and many on line videos but none of the ones I watched covered the main editing features I use.
In terms of the OneDrive issue, I have been reading elsewhere that there is supposed to be 30 days grace for Microsoft to restore the deleted files.
Another possible option, but it means paying spondoolies out:
Lastly, you might want to look at the Unofficial Manual for Zorin 18 Core r.3, still a work in progress, from here:
Thanks @swarfendor437 for the updated manual. I will have to see if I can add it to my Kindle so that I can read it while killing time in town while SWMBO has her medical.
Thanks again @swarfendor437 for the info for getting Irfanview working.
I was too mentally and physically exhausted to try it but our son was here yesterday to see his mum and followed your instructions on copying files from the windows install to wine and Iview now works very nicely thank you.
What he could not get to work was opening a file using the right click option (and setting Iview as the default for that type of file). He has been using Debian continuously at home and work since the mid 90s (he was a Solaris sys admin even earlier) but is purely a command line user.
Overnight a possible solution dribbled into my head and it worked. For others with the same issue I copied the properties from the link on desktop into the box above, selected set as default and hey presto! it works.
