Pinta: a Simple Image Editor for Ubuntu

Nothing is ever easy in Ubuntu. For anybody who just wants to get a job done, such as simply adding text to a screenshot, Ubuntu is not the operating system for you. I quite frequently need to add text to a screenshot and this was a painless process in Mac OS, using Preview. Doing the same thing in Ubuntu becomes an adventure, as I'll now describe.

I'm familiar with GIMP but I didn't want to use a program of that complexity for such a simple task. It didn't take too long to discover that Pinta was the software application that would serve my purpose best and so I went to the Ubuntu Software Centre to download it. See Figure 1.

Figure 1

Using the terminal's sudo apt install pinta was unsuccessful as certain files couldn't be downloaded. The Ubuntu Help Centre however, is always "helpful". I came across the following revelation:

This issue has existed for a long time. Ubuntu's Snap store isn't well-maintained and doesn't perform properly. As a result, in Jammy 22.04, they've chosen to use Gnome software instead. Gnome software is working fine without any issues. You can install gnome-software using: sudo apt install gnome-software.

Of course, I'm running Ubuntu 20.04, the long term stable release version of the OS and so I had to install it from the terminal. Once I'd done that Pinta was displayed within the little suitcase icon and I've added both the Gnome Software Centre and Pinta to my favourites on the sidebar. See Figure 2.

Figure 2

This installation wasn't totally without drama either but eventually I succeeded and have been successfully adding text to my screenshots. I've still to get my webcam working but this isn't a high priority as I don't really use it. I'd really like to get Calibre working however, so this is a more immediate challenge. However, one step at a time.

Previously, when I had Ubuntu installed as a virtual machine within my Mac OS, I could always run back to the latter if I had problems but now I have nowhere to run and so I'm forced to find solutions. So far, the solution to the fan problem referred to in my previous post is holding up so I'm well pleased.

Chess Diagrams

In the last few months, my interest in Chess has been rekindled in large part due to http://en.chessbase.com/ and the associated online Fritz Chess Program. However, only premium users of ChessBase can make use of the feature that allows the setting up of positions, important when following through an analysis provided in a chess book. For example, I have a book called 101 Chess Endgame Tips by Steve Giddins. Here is a typical position in which White must try to draw the game and not lose it.

I could not see how to set up the position in either the chess program that comes with macOS or Stockfish that I had downloaded. So I downloaded a program called ChessX, an open source program that I found at sourceforge and found that I was able to set the position easily and play it through as outlined in the book. This is a very useful feature. 

The position above leads with proper play to White having the opposition against the Black King and therefore securing a draw. The proper play is: 

1. Kg3!! Kc2 2. Kf2! d2 3. Kf1! Kd1 4. Kf2 Kd2 5. Kf1 Kd3 6. Ke1 Kc4 7. Kd2 Kb5 8. Kc3 Kxb6 9. Kb4 and White has the opposition and draws. Ultimately, the position will end up as shown below where White must be careful to retreat to b1 where the opposition can be maintained whether Black chooses to move the King to a3 or b3.