As we know Google Picasa on Linux (the scariest piece of desktop software on Linux, technology-wise) is close to death. How about digiKam ability to import existing albums (full real albums, preserving captions, ratings, not just webalbums) into digiKam? Metadata in Picasa is not particularly hard to read. Seems like natural way to increase user base.

I did a clean install of Mageia only to discover Picasa for linux was no more
Digikam has proven to be a reasonable replacement

I don't use much of the more elaborate meta data
DigiKam
http://www.digikam.org/
certainly respected my file structure
I had Picasa set to use a regular ol folder tree set-up
digikam works [uploads] well with Picasa/Google+ webalbums

Digikam Is a good replacement for Picasa

Garthhh, this isn't discussion about feature list of Digikam for newcomers. To be seen as a replacement (read: replace app X), simple import feature from app X is needed. Importing just the directories does not create any higher level structures like albums. Everyone is capable to do this. So even album names are lost, not mentioning descriptions, captions for pictures, dates. I find it surprising but have no time and energy to implement it just for myself even if that's not a rocket science. Thus, I'll be looking even for a non-KDE app that's capable to do that simple importing.

Maybe I'll be pushing for this feature for the next GSoC - to get quite ironically funding from Google itself

PS: EXIF and similar metadata layers should for standards that all (at least FOSS) apps use. Why ODF standards are so blessed by the communities while much simpler and familiar area (photo cataloging) is not -- this is a mystery to me...

fair enough

I bumped into this thread searching for Digikam

& left a breadcrumb, should anyone be searching for a Picasa replacement

what's missing from all potential Picasa replacements
the ability to scroll through all thumbnails without switching folders

I stick with a very basic folder tree organizational structure for any media files, after having metadata incompatibility issues with music files

metadata compatibility issues cuts across all types & formats of media