PAF on Linux (or alternatives)

Let's get the ball rolling!

What are people using for genealogy on Linux?

The most used geneology program on Linux is Lifelines ( http://lifelines.sourceforge.net). It uses gedcom files for it's database, and you can write script for custom reports.

The next biggest application is GRAMPS ( http://gramps-project.org ).

There may be some others, but these are the two that I have found.

I've used GRAMPS quite a bit and rather like it. I have only 2 complaints about it:

1. If you attach an image to a record (say a census record or photograph) it saves the full path to the image instead of the relative path. Then if you move the database to another machine, all of the images fail to load.

2. The reports it creates don't look that great. The good news is that most of the reports can be output to OpenOffice documents so that you can change them.

Tom

It is The Church's intent to create an Open Source project for a desktop genealogy record manager that is compatible with the New FamilySearch. We are now looking for a Lead Engineer on this project. If we do are work right, this should easily be portable to the Linux world.

Gordon Clarke
FamilySearch DevNet Manager

gordon wrote:It is The Church's intent to create an Open Source project for a desktop genealogy record manager that is compatible with the New FamilySearch. We are now looking for a Lead Engineer on this project. If we do are work right, this should easily be portable to the Linux world.

Gordon Clarke
FamilySearch DevNet Manager

Thats great when doing it don't forget the Mac audience. I know of a few people that are looking to use parallel's (or similar tech) and Windows to run PAF because the new Intel macs don't support Classic mode anymore. Java would be an ok idea with me if you did native style installs. Eg. package windows in an installer and mac in a bundle...

Jonathan

Just to add what Gordon has said. PAF was a concept rooted in the pre-Internet days of when one stored one's information on the local hard drive (or even floppy!). But Genealogy is a collaborative effort. Individually, locally stored databases are a really poor data model for a collaborative work. The Church is working on a new FamilySearch site that will take things to the next level.

jkarras wrote:Thats great when doing it don't forget the Mac audience. I know of a few people that are looking to use parallel's (or similar tech) and Windows to run PAF because the new Intel macs don't support Classic mode anymore. Java would be an ok idea with me if you did native style installs. Eg. package windows in an installer and mac in a bundle...

Jonathan

Is there even decent genealogy software for the Mac?

Sure there is. See http://www.macgenealogy.org/

clarkkent93 wrote:Is there even decent genealogy software for the Mac?

I really like Reunion 8. http://www.leisterpro.com

Does anyone know if PAF will run under wine?

Cory

cmkilger wrote:IDoes anyone know if PAF will run under wine?

I've seen instructions for getting it to work, but I've never done it myself. As I recall, there were some DLLs that Wine didn't provide, or that the Wine versions didn't work, that had to be copied in from a real Windows installation.

I would also request that PAF be built as a platform independent product, perhaps using java and a browser. As a Mac user, I was frustrated when the church ceased updating the Mac version of PAF several years ago, so I am eager to see it revived.

But if you consider the many members in developing countries who may not be able to purchase a Mac or Windows machine, and instead find an inexpensive Linux box or even a stanad-alone box that can only browse the internet - for these many members it would make sense to have a PAF option that is platform independent.

- Ryan

I would request that it is not web based, due to the limited functionality of web items and the dependence that it has on the server support. A local Java program with small but syncable database would be much more effective and would reduce the load on the FamilySearch servers.

PAF 5.2 does indeed install and run very well under Wine version 0.9.29. Instructions are at

http://appdb.winehq.org/appview.php?iVersionId=1706

Please look at the top and bottom of that page for current (January, 2007) information. (I am waiting a bit longer before removing some of the obsolete information from 2006 and earlier on that page. I'm one of the volunteer maintainers for that AppDB page.)

If you encounter problems using PAF 5 under Wine, please post a note to that page, and I'll do what I can to help. (At last attempt, PAF 4 does not install using the latest Wine version. The user who needed PAF 4 was going to file a bug report against Wine, but I haven't seen that happen.)

thedqs wrote:I would request that it is not web based, due to the limited functionality of web items and the dependence that it has on the server support. A local Java program with small but syncable database would be much more effective and would reduce the load on the FamilySearch servers.

I agree that a PAF replacement needs to be a stand-alone application, but obviously with the new Family Search data acting as the central repository, it would need to be able to be synchronized when an internet connection is available. PAF Insight (http://www.ohanasoftware.com/) already has some of this ability by automating some of the HTTP processes which normally require a browser.

Just a reply to Tomw... Gramps now has the ability to store relative paths. The new "media manager" feature does the chopping automatically.

I can confirm that PAF works on wine on Linux and NetBSD. I still prefer Gramps myself.

I don't think java would be a very good idea for PAF (or whatever it would be called). I think http://bugs.sun.com/bugdatabase/view_bu ... id=4121972 , among others, is relevant here.

Perhaps wxWidgets could be used. In that way, I think, code and logic could be incorporated from the current PAF (I'm guessing it's MSVC++ right now).

I might be wrong but I believe Sun fixed that.

http://bugs.sun.com/bugdatabase/view_bu ... id=4313883

It shows that it was fixed after Java 1.4.

Oops. Yes, you are right. sorry.

It may not be true anymore (I don't know), but Java has, in the past, been plagued with I/O slowness, and that's more what I was getting at.

</slightlyofftoppic>

bchirel wrote:Just a reply to Tomw... Gramps now has the ability to store relative paths. The new "media manager" feature does the chopping automatically.

AWESOME! I'll grab the latest. Thanks for letting me know!

Tom

YEESSS!!! PAF5.2 finally works on linux (PCLinuxOS 0.93) with wine-0.9.29 for me without resorting to any *.dll madness. For those who wish to compile & install their own version:
1. Download PAF5Font.exe & PAF5EnglishSetup.exe (or whatever your language(s)
you prefer from the downloads section at FamilySearch.org.
2. Download wine-0.9.29.tar.bz2 or later from the winehq.org website.
Move it to some directory (I use build) in your home directory.
Extract the tarball.
Enter the wine-0.9.** directory just created and read the README file carefully.
On initial install, pay particular attention to section 3. REQUIREMENTS -> Optional
support libraries: After all library requirements are met, THEN run ./tools.wineinstall.
3. After wine is sucessfully installed run wine PAF5Font (in the directory where
PAF5Font.exe is located). After that is successfully installed run winecfg and choose
your fonts (Andale) under the Fonts tab. When done exit and log out.
4. Log in, then from a terminal, run wine PAF5***Setup ( in the directory where it is
located). I just chose defaults. ( Do choose Install PAF5 icon on desktop).
5. After Installation is finished, click on the PAF5 icon and enjoy!

Caveat! For anyone who contemplates installing PCLinuxOS 0.93, don't. It's successor, 0.94 or 2007 or whatever they decide to call it is due out VERY soon, & you won't be able to upgrade. So, like me, be patient. From what I.ve seen, the wait will be well worth it

jlwell wrote:YEESSS!!! PAF5.2 finally works on linux (PCLinuxOS 0.93) with wine-0.9.29 for me without resorting to any *.dll madness. For those who wish to compile & install their own version:
...

The HOWTO and some of the comments at the Wine AppDB page for PAF 5,

http://appdb.winehq.org/appview.php?iVersionId=1706

have been updated since the link was first posted in comment #13. Additional cleanup of obsolete comments is in process. There are different methods that appear to have succeeded in getting PAF 5 to work under Wine.

(Gramps running natively does arguably have many advantages over PAF under Wine, but if another household member insists on learning and using a _SINGLE_ program at home and at the FHC, PAF would seem to fit that requirement.)

gordon wrote:It is The Church's intent to create an Open Source project for a desktop genealogy record manager that is compatible with the New FamilySearch. We are now looking for a Lead Engineer on this project. If we do are work right, this should easily be portable to the Linux world.

Wow.. I am excited that the Church is embracing the OSS model for this! I was just explaining to a family member the difficulty of switching to Mac when they do so much geneology, but mentioned other OSS projects that might work (or the hope that a future PAF would port back to Mac once again). Doing it open source is even better. I imagine contributions from members who dive into the code could prove very beneficial.

I'll keep my eye on the forums and help out where I can..

Cheers!

shoalcreek5 wrote:Sure there is. See http://www.macgenealogy.org/

Thanks for the URL but I noticed there hasn't been much activity over at this site. I'm seriously thinking of switching from Windows to Mac and need good intel on genealogy programs for the Mac.

Again, thanks for your help.

Bernard

clarkkent93 wrote:Thanks for the URL but I noticed there hasn't been much activity over at this site. I'm seriously thinking of switching from Windows to Mac and need good intel on genealogy programs for the Mac.

Again, thanks for your help.

Bernard

There's a chance PAF would (or some time soon will) work using Wine. The FAQ entry for Wine on the so-called MacIntel machines is at

http://www.winehq.org/site/docs/wine-fa ... N-MACINTEL

, and the Wine AppDB page for PAF under Wine is at

http://appdb.winehq.org/appview.php?iVersionId=1706

I use Linux myself, and I'm not acquainted with how well Wine might currently work on Intel-based Macintosh machines. The best way to get it so it will work is to try it and file bug reports if/when it fails.

It's my belief that Paf Should be made Web-based, Companies such as Apple and Microsoft are always making changes to their OS's. I'm not sure, but does PAF work on the new windows vista? The best way I think to build it is on a web platform based on the standards that the W3C adopt. This way Mac users, Windows Users and Linux Users all have an equal oportunity to do there Geneology. This would also make the Family History classes work better on sundays.

Making it web-based makes a lot of sense because you can get multiple family members working on the pedigree at the same time. Collaboration will improve the accuracy and if someone goes cold, others in the family can pick up the slack.

Perhaps a Sync tool/export tool could be used for a Java client.

The web based collaborative/Web 2.0 approach seems in my opinion to be the most innovative.

I recently tried a web-based Geneology service called Geni http://www.geni.com It is very visual and easy to use, the best feature is that as you build your family tree, etc. you can invite the living Relatives via e-mail to participate as well. My brother started filling in stuff yesterday, and he had information that I didn't have. Not only is it easy to use, free, and useful, but it actually is fun.

I think the church should take a close look at this one. It looks like it's built on Ruby on Rails or AJAX.

Enough of my Ramblings PUT ANOTHER VOTE FOR WEB-BASED.

gordon wrote:It is The Church's intent to create an Open Source project for a desktop genealogy record manager that is compatible with the New FamilySearch. We are now looking for a Lead Engineer on this project. If we do are work right, this should easily be portable to the Linux world.

Gordon Clarke
FamilySearch DevNet Manager

Is this Lead Engineer position a posted job opening? (Last I checked, none of the posted openings appeared obviously relevant.) If it's not a posted opening, where might someone find out about requirements and/or submit an application?

My experience with GENi is similar to that which has been mentioned. It is a very intutive and fun interface. Everyone I have invited has been very enthused about it. I am amazed at how fast my family tree has grown. The other site I find to be of equal value is WeRelate.org only for differing reasons. Where GENi is strong WeRelate is equally strong only in a different way. WeRelate is based on MediaWiki and has been customized for family history. It allows you to easily enter documentary and other details about each person. It is also good for entering research related articles and so forth. Now all we need is a way to organize and the store lds ordinance data as relates to a person. I am guessing that is what this Newfamilysearch is all about.

rmrichesjr wrote:Is this Lead Engineer position a posted job opening? (Last I checked, none of the posted openings appeared obviously relevant.) If it's not a posted opening, where might someone find out about requirements and/or submit an application?

This is where I first heard about the posting: Some guy's personal blog

It is dated back to early December. I don't see the posting on the Church current job listings. Perhaps it has been filled?

Thanks for spotting that, but actually, the article quoting the job posting was dated December of 2005, over a year ago.

I've used PhpGedView as a Linux/Mac GEDCOM editor - it turns your Gedcom files into a website that you can browse and update very easily, and share with others too. The downside is you need to be able to create a php-based website, so there's a technical hurdle. It's pretty nice - though I switched back to PAF recently because of the stuff PAF Insight can do.

As a suggestion to those with Mac (Intel) or Linux you can use Apache and the PHP plugin for your web server. The instructions are very easy (especially for this crowd) to follow, I think.

I switched to using Linux over a year ago. Recently I tried running PAF in wine. It went through the installation OK, and it searched, and found my GEDCOM file. When I tried to enter data, it crashed. No complaints, I didn't expect it to get as far as it did. So I went with PhpGedView, which was surprisingly easy to set up. However, this is not a solution for most people.

rickety wrote:I switched to using Linux over a year ago. Recently I tried running PAF in wine. It went through the installation OK, and it searched, and found my GEDCOM file. When I tried to enter data, it crashed. No complaints, I didn't expect it to get as far as it did. So I went with PhpGedView, which was surprisingly easy to set up. However, this is not a solution for most people.

(Somebody please let me know if I'm posting this too much and I'll slow down or quit.)

If you want to try PAF 5 using a recent version of Wine, I think you'll be pleased with how well it works. With the exception of the help viewer, Wine 0.9.29 has worked very well for everything I have tried. With Wine 0.9.32, the help viewer now has basic functionality. If so inclined, please check out http://appdb.winehq.org/appview.php?iVersionId=1706 for the Wine AppDB page for PAF 5.

I tried a few versions ago and it was crashing when I tried to enter data. I just tried again with Wine 0.9.32 on Ubuntu and it worked just fine. Of course there are graphics glitches which makes it feel alpha quality, but my 3 minute test went really well. I installed the Microsoft arial32.exe font so that I could see what I was doing.

Tomj wrote:It's my belief that Paf Should be made Web-based, Companies such as Apple and Microsoft are always making changes to their OS's. I'm not sure, but does PAF work on the new windows vista? The best way I think to build it is on a web platform based on the standards that the W3C adopt.

W3C is all about presentation logic. You would need something like PHP or Perl or C for the backend, and the backend would be 80% of the work.

Besides which, good luck finding any two browers to have full W3C compliancy. Just look at the Acid3 test and see how badly pretty much all browsers render W3C specs

Tomj wrote:This way Mac users, Windows Users and Linux Users all have an equal oportunity to do there Geneology. This would also make the Family History classes work better on sundays.

C and C++ can be written to be portable (with recompile, but it'd be distributed in binaries of course), you just don't use non-portable librairies and system calls.

Tomj wrote:I think the church should take a close look at this one. It looks like it's built on Ruby on Rails or AJAX.

AJAX just pushes/pulls content though right. There has to be a backend.

rickety wrote:I switched to using Linux over a year ago. Recently I tried running PAF in wine. It went through the installation OK, and it searched, and found my GEDCOM file. When I tried to enter data, it crashed. No complaints, I didn't expect it to get as far as it did. So I went with PhpGedView, which was surprisingly easy to set up. However, this is not a solution for most people.

Why not try GRAMPS that hold also LDS ordinances?

marianomarini_vi wrote:Why not try GRAMPS that hold also LDS ordinances?

I actually use gramps on my system and quite like it. In San Diego, I was involved with a program where we would do basic genealogy research for our neighbors and then present them a nice binder full of their genealogy. I did all of my work in Gramps and it worked out nicely.

Tom

gordon wrote:… We are now looking for a Lead Engineer on this project. If we do are work right, this should easily be portable to the Linux world. …

I would recommend searching for someone with lots of experience programming in Python (and someone familiar with programming Unicode applications)—Python is great for things like this, and it would make porting it to all platforms quite easy, if not instant (not to say you have to do the whole thing in Python—you can have C modules and such, if desired, if you choose to use Python).

The only real problem with Python is that the debugging process is quite different from that of lower-level languages. I mean, you don't declare types for variables, and you declare them at the time you assign them. I'd love to see a language like Python where you can 'optionally' do these things (I don't like it to be one way or the other 'all' the time)—especially if it were a derivative of Python (throw in a switch statement while you're at it). Notwithstanding these things however, Python is quite a good choice.

GRAMPS is an example of a Family History program made in Python. I consider that a wise choice—many of my favorite cross-platform programs are made in Python, at least partially. GRAMPS is open source GNU software—so you could even use parts of it, or glean ideas from it, and learn from any mistakes/problems they might have. I like a lot of the navigational features they offer (e.g. right-clicking on a name in the pedigree view will allow quick menu access to children, spouses, siblings and parents; you can bookmark individuals in a favorites menu; etc.) I also like how it has an XML export option—too bad it's not a standard one, though, that other family history programs would support (I don't know if one exists—but these XML files are less than half the size of GEDCOM files; XML is a pretty good idea, in general, I think).

I'm not saying to make it exactly like GRAMPS or anything—just to use the good ideas from it. I'd like to see something more stable than GRAMPS, myself, however. Moving the database can cause problems, and I've had issues with importing files into it—plus there seem to be some backwards compatibility issues. I'm guessing they'll work these things out in future, though, as it is an excellent project.

What license is intended to be put on the software? Will it be GNU, a custom license, or something else? Is the church allowed to make GNU software? Just curious—it might be nice, though.

If you're doing a web application, porting it to other operating systems shouldn't be a problem at all, unless you're using technology owned by some proprietary company that is competing with certain opperating systems (I recommend against that, even if it's nice technology that no one else offers). Good web applications should work without regard to operating system (almost all web applications do anyway, except 'some' of those that use components from specific proprietary media players and such). It doesn't make much sense for them not to, especially since most are made with cross-platform scripting languages in the first place. I'm not sure which scripting language I would recommend for web applications—I don't have much experience in that regard, but any of the popular ones should work well (PHP, Perl, Python, and so forth)—I would recommend against using Java applets, however; server-side scripting should be better.