Installing "Google Picasa for Linux" in Fedora 14+

First setup the Google repositorys.

Now, create a file called /etc/yum.repos.d/google.repo and put the following in it:

[google]
name=Google - i386
baseurl=http://dl.google.com/linux/rpm/stable/i386
enabled=1
gpgcheck=1

[google-testing]
name=Google Testing - i386
baseurl=http://dl.google.com/linux/rpm/testing/i386
enabled=1
gpgcheck=1

NOTE: In the above example I have both the regular and testing repos enabled. If you are not feeling cutting edge change the enabled field to 0 under the testing section.

Next install the Fedora wine and Picasa with the following:

yum install picasa wine openssl-devel

NOTE: If you are running a 64-bit version of Fedora then you need to additionally install the 32-bit version of openssl by doing the following:

yum install openssl-devel.i686

Now make a backup copy of the Picasa wine-preloader and replace it with the Fedora wine-preloader. This is what makes it able to connect with newer version of Fedora:

cp /opt/google/picasa/3.0/wine/bin/wine-preloader /opt/google/picasa/3.0/wine/bin/wine-preloader.orig
cp /usr/bin/wine-preloader /opt/google/picasa/3.0/wine/bin/

NOTE: The above steps will get you latest "Google Picasa for Linux" version. It is version 3.0. They have stopped development of the Linux version at 3.0. The windows version continued to be developed up to version 3.8. If you would like to try out 3.0 then you are done and just stop here. If you would like to try further steps to manually update to the 3.8 version then continue on below.

UPGRADING TO 3.8
First download the latest Windows version:

wget http://dl.google.com/picasa/picasa38-setup.exe
wine picasa38-setup.exe

Just click through the install with all the defaults.

Once the above install finishes, the final step is to simply copy over the files from the wine installed 3.8 to the location of the initial 3.0 version. Please note that the username > below needs replaced with the username of the account you installed picasa3.8-setup.exe with.

su -
cp -r /home/ username >/.wine/drive_c/Program\ Files/Google/Picasa3/* /opt/google/picasa/3.0/wine/drive_c/Program\ Files/Google/Picasa3/

You are all done. Now just run Picasa by going to Applications->Graphics->Picasa->Picasa. Don't run the one from the Wine menu.

Also, I have tried the above steps to upgrade an already installed 3.0 version to 3.8 and it worked with no problems while still keeping my Albums.

PLEASE READ: I have read that you should not run the "Places" section of Picasa from 3.8 as it will break you Picasa install. Everything else should work including the face recognition features.