Nostalgic Photo DataBase (platform) Files

Installing NPDB on Microsoft Windows

The NPDB was developed on Linux and for Linux users. However with Microsoft WSL technology it may be installed and run on MS Windows. WSL - "Windows Subsystem for Linux is a compatibility layer for running Linux binary executables natively on Windows 10, Windows 11". In this document we explain what shall be done in order to use NPDB on the Windows platform.

The comprehensive documentation of WSL is located here:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl

Specifically installations are explained in the texts:
(A) https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install
(B) https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/tutorials/gui-apps

Prerequisites to be able to run Linux on Windows including GUI applications:

1. You will need to be on Windows 10 Build 19044+ or Windows 11. We recommend installing WSL with the default distribution which is Ubuntu. At the end of the installation you are asked to define UNIX username and password for Ubuntu account. Assume that the username is "npdb" and the user's home directory is: /home/npdb ($HOME)

2. To run Linux GUI apps, you should first install the driver matching your system. Document (B) contains links for Intel, AMD and NVIDIA GPU drivers for WSL.

3. If the appropriate driver is not available or does not work, you will need to install X server (in Windows - not in the linux terminal). We recommend a free VcXsrv application from: https://sourceforge.net/projects/vcxsrv
   3.1 Once vcxsrv is installed, pay attention on the proper configuration of XLaunch on Windows (when starting it in a special window):

   • Select Multiple Windows (default)
   • Select Start no client (default)
   • Check Disable access control!
   • Uncheck Native opengl!

Once you have WSL up and running, perform following installation steps:

1. Download NPDB tarball (npdb_p-2-0-[x].tgz) from https://npdb-p.sourceforge.io
   where [x] is taken from the version number.
   Let's assume that the tarball is in "C:\Temp" folder.

2. Return to Ubuntu terminal, to the user's home directory and run "tar" command:
   cd ; tar xvzf /mnt/c/Temp/npdb_p-2-0-[x].tgz

3. The tarball contains 3 folders: src, libs, PhotoRoot and 2 bash scripts: build.sh and comp_install.sh

4. Now you need to install several system components. For this purpose you may try to run script comp_install.sh:
   . npdb_p/comp_install.sh

5. If something goes wrong on the previous step, the same job of installing components consists of following manual steps:

   • sudo apt update
   • sudo apt install build-essential
   • sudo apt install eog
   • sudo apt install eog with --fix-missing (only if necessary)
   • sudo apt install gedit
   • sudo apt install curl
   • sudo apt install poppler-utils
   • sudo apt install evince
   • sudo apt install sqlitebrowser
   • sudo apt install python3
   • sudo apt install python3-pip
   • sudo apt install python3-tk
   • sudo python3 -m pip install FreeSimpleGUI --break-system-packages

Note: if you experience networking problems with installation of the packages, try following command:
echo "nameserver 8.8.8.8" | sudo tee /etc/resolv.conf > /dev/null

1. In case "home directory" is other than "/home/npdb" - you'll need to edit one line in the text file: ~/npdb_p/src/csv_ref/SysMisc.txt

   1,DATAROOT,/home/npdb/npdb_p/PhotoRoot,0
   and substitute this path with the actual path.

2. Run the build script from the NPDB directory, like:
   cd ~/npdb_p; . build.sh**

3. Define 3 environment variables:

   • If you use X server (VcXsrv), then:
     export DISPLAY=$(grep nameserver /etc/resolv.conf | awk '{print $2}'):0.0
     Otherwise (you've succeeded to install the GPU driver):
   • export DISPLAY=:0.0
   • export DBPATH=$HOME/npdb_p/db
   • export EXEDIR=$HOME/npdb_p/bin

You may put the 3 export commands into ".bashrc" script in your "home directory".

Now you are ready to "play" with the reference implementation of NPDB and then use the system according to the documentation provided in the folder:
~/npdb_p/src/docs

Start your NPDB experience by invocation of NPDB launcher (front end):
cd $EXEDIR; ./run_np.sh**