Shotwell stores most of its information in a database. Which I lost. Because I'm an idiot.

But a bunch of metadata is also stored in the image's EXIF metadata!

Most importantly is the "Original File Name" which should become the "Description" in DigiKam. Unfortunately, there's no way to copy those values automatically on import.

So here's a one-liner which will read the "Original File Name" and store it in the "Title" EXIF - ready for DigiKam to parse!

exiftool "-XMP-dc:Title<XMP-getty:OriginalFileName" whatever.jpg

If you want to make sure any existing Title isn't overwritten, use:

exiftool "-XMP-dc:Title<${XMP-getty:OriginalFileName}" -if "not defined $XMP-dc:Title" whatever.jpg

Finally, to do it recursively, across all files:

exiftool -r "-XMP-dc:Title<${XMP-getty:OriginalFileName}" -if "not defined $XMP-dc:Title" /path/to/images

Get an account

Sign up and use code MOZILLA20 for a cheeky 20% discount!

Get a token in the browser

To start with, you'll need to get an authentication token. This requires you to be on a machine which can run a modern browser like Firefox or Chrome.

On a computer with a GUI, download MozWire. This is an unofficial way to download the necessary WireGuard config files.

Open up a terminal and make it executable:

chmod +x mozwire-linux

Run the app:

./mozwire-linux --print-token

That will automatically open your web browser. Sign in to the Mozilla VPN service in the browser. Return to your terminal and you'll see a long token like:

abc.123.qwe.rty.uio

It will be much longer than that! Save it somewhere safe.

Server time!

SSH into your server. Download MozWire.

wget https://github.com/NilsIrl/MozWire/releases/latest/download/mozwire-linux

Make it executable:

chmod +x mozwire-linux

Check that it works by getting it to list all the devices you have associated with your account:

./mozwire-linux --token abc.123.qwe.rty.uio device list

That should show the name of your devices - it won't include the server.

It's tedious to type in the token each time, so run:

export MOZ_TOKEN="abc.123.qwe.rty.uio"

Run:

./mozwire-linux device list

And you should get the same result as before.

Make sure you have installed WireGuard and resolvconf:

sudo apt install wireguard wireguard-tools resolvconf

Next, generate the public/private keypair and associate it with your server:

./mozwire-linux device add --name My-Awesome-Server --privkey $(wg genkey)

Once that's run, you can confirm the server has been added by again running:

./mozwire-linux device list

That should show your previous devices and the new one.

Next up, it's time to download all the Mozilla VPN WireGuard configs:

./mozwire-linux relay save -o ~/mozwireconf -n 0

That will upload your public key to Mozilla and then download a bunch of configurations into ~/mozwireconf (or wherever you choose).

Run Wireguard

To connect to, say, the Denmark Copenhagen server, run:

wg-quick up ~/mozwireconf/dk-cph-wg-101.conf

And... that's it! If you run ifconfig you'll see a new network entry for WireGuard.

You can check that it's working by running:

curl https://ifconfig.co/json ; echo

That will print out some diagnostic information about the IP address your server presents to the world.

To turn off the MozillaVPN, run:

wg-quick down ~/mozwireconf/dk-cph-wg-101.conf

To run MozillaVPN for a single program, install Vopono

vopono exec --custom ~/.config/vopono/mozilla/wireguard/fi-hel-wg-103.conf "curl https://ifconfig.co/json"

alias lh='ls -trhgGN --color=always | cut -d" " -f4-'

When I run lh it outputs a list of files in the directory, showing their size, with the newest files on the bottom. I use this regularly to see what I've downloaded recently and how big the files are - so I made an alias.

Here's how it works.

Alias

Alias is a Jester in disguise useful Linux tool which lets you create a shortcut to a complicated command. Every flavour of Linux has a different place to store them, so do a bit of RTFM to find out where to put your commands.

ls

ls is the standard file listing tool. It has lots of options.

• -tr sort by time in reverse order
• -h human readable size format. Shows in KB, MB, GB, rather than just bytes
• -g don't show the owner of the file
• -G don't show the group the file belongs to
• -N don't quote the file names
• --color=always always colours the output, making it easier to differentiate between fields

There's no way to suppress the file permissions in ls so we need to pipe to cut.

cut

cut takes a string and chops it up.

• -d" " the delimiter is the space character, cut will separate the string by the delimiter, each separated section is a field.
• -f4- print the fourth field and any subsequent field

Putting it all together

"When I type lh, please list the files in reverse time order, showing the file size but not the owners or groups, don't quote the names, and keep the colouring - then discard the first 3 columns."

Thanks to Maddison Hellstrom for the help.

(As an aside, it always boggled my mind that CDs don't come with metadata burned onto the disc. Even a single spare megabyte would be enough to hold detailed track listing, artwork, etc.)

Back when I started, there was no way to get album artwork. Most media players will recognise that if a .jpg is in a folder with music, then it should be treated as the album artwork. This file is usually called "cover.jpg" or "albumart.jpg" - but that's only convention; any name will do.

So, rather than re-rip all by CDs, I wrote a quick bash script to scrape the images from albumart.org. First the script and then some notes about the choices I made when writing it.

#!/bin/bash -e
# get_coverart.sh
#
# This simple script will fetch the cover art for the album information provided on the command line.
# It will then download that cover image, and place it into the child directory.
#
# ./get_coverart.sh <relative -path>
#
# get_coverart Beatles/Sgt Pepper
#
# get_coverart Beatles/Sgt_Pepper
#
# get_coverart "Beatles - Sgt_Pepper"
#
# To auto-populate all directories in the current directory, run the following command
#
# find . -type d -exec ./get_coverart "{}" ;
albumpath="$1"

# Escape any problematic character
encoded="$(perl -MURI::Escape -e 'print uri_escape($ARGV[0]);' "$albumpath")"

# Skip if a cover.jpg exists in the directory
if [ -f "$albumpath/cover.jpg" ]
then
echo "$albumpath/cover.jpg already exists"
exit
fi

# Tell the user what is going on
echo ""
echo "Searching for: [$1]"

# scraping AlbumArt.org
url="http://www.albumart.org/index.php?skey=$encoded&itempage=1&newsearch=1&searchindex=Music"
echo "Searching ... [$url]"

# Grab the first Amazon image without an underscore (usually the largest version)
coverurl=`wget -qO - "$url" | grep -m 1 -o 'http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/*/[%0-9a-zA-Z.,-]*.jpg'`

echo "Cover URL: [$coverurl]"

# Save the imager
wget "$coverurl" -O "$albumpath/cover.jpg"

Notes

I originally suggested this as an enhancement for the popular ABCDE Linux ripper. It's based off this older, now obsolete, script.

AlbumArt.org uses images from Amazon.com - why not just use the Amazon API?

The Amazon API is great but it requires that you get an account with Amazon and include an API key with every request. That means you can't just dump the script on a box and start downloading - you'd need to configure it first?

Why the change from XPATH?

I love XPATH and use it regularly. What I found when deploying this script to a new Ubuntu install was that xmllint wasn't installed by default. On the other hand, grep is installed on every machine. Seeing as how the Amazon images are a fixed pattern, a regular expression works just fine.

What if there are multiple results from a search?

This will automatically download the first one. As this is a command line tool, there's no practical way to display the various images. I did look at ASCII art conversion, but that's problematic. Some albums work well - e.g. Little Mix's DNA

.=====+++O887?+++.+===~~INMNMMMMMN?~==~.
.=7I+=~~NMM8ND$=+.====~OMMMMMMMMMMMD~=~.
.~=+=ONMD8ZNNN88I.~~~~:MMMM=?MMMMMMMN=~.
.~==ZNN+:,,,N8ODO.:~~~=NMMZZ:$MMMMMMN=~.
.===NZNII..+O88ONI.=~:=,DM+$::7NMMMMN:~.
.+=7DD8,::~,,DD88O.OOIZOMMM~=7.+MMND+~,:
.=+8DND+,:~,=DD8DD~,8DZ+:NMZ?~?8MMMNNMO~
.==DNNNNI=++NDDNNDZ$MNOOOON7++IMMM8?==~M
.+?NMNNN78N8MNNNNNOI?+???I?I+=+IM8$+++I:
.=NMMMNDN==MNNMNMN$=+?8$I+?+==+???III==+
.8NMMMNN?=+M$IIII:I,77II7D?+~~=??:ONMNZ?
.MNMNMMZ7~+MO7~II:7=7???77$,......,:??=M
.MMMM8=.......,~=~=.I:I,7,I=+==+=====+=.
...,~=?8D878DO+~~~=?~=7++NNM8NNMD===+==.
.==~=~DD8DNNON8+7I=+?=78ND~:::~NNNI===~.
.==~~~NI:,,:I88+:~~~.~=8M?:,?,=+NOM7+=~.
.=~=~~8~,...,?8~~~~~.+=MDND:,I::8MMZ=+=.
.==~~~ZDD+.+7+$~~~~~,,~MM7:~=.,=DNNMI+=.
.~~~~:?:,~,,,7=:~::~~.+NMMI7:~:~NDNNN+=.
.~~==~:I,,,,~D::~:~~=.DMDNNI::O+NN8DN+=.
.====~=:,,,~N~:::~~==.N8NDDN+=~+DOODN$=.
.+====~D+,M~~,.,:====.ND8NNN+::=DD8OND=.
.??,++++I~,?+:,,:::~+87D8DNM:::~MNODND=.
.?=,.~=~,+,$+?+??++~IMNNNMNN$,,,MNNMNNOI
..$+~~=.:~,Z====++++7MMNMNM,~,,,MMNNNMM.

Whereas Sgt Pepper is hard to make out.

:::::::::::::::::::::::~~~~~~::::::,,,,,
:,:::::,~::==:::O7~~:~8~=~~=Z+~:I:::,,,.
~+.:+8~D7:::~+8??:==I:O?~$:~$ZI=7IO:,,~:
:I$=,N$=:8O7?7+I?=.8?78OI:~+I~7O$Z$O+?$:
,O$.~D8$~~Z+ZD7$$DOO=8ZZ?OI8?:D7=887Z8Z?
~87+Z$+:~8+,:OD8O~=NDD7OO$+Z8D:ZDDDD88Z?
$O88Z8?DDD?ZZN+ODI,D?88D887$7=D8D+D8O8Z=
,7ID=88II7IOZ7ZZZ7$:===$77~I:~88ZIIO88$?
~..DDDDDDDDOIN=7$7~?I?=OIZ$I:$Z7+?Z+88ZI
Z+,8DDDDDDD+D7O?8ZZ777?8Z8I==OD~8~D$7OZ?
,,D8DDDDNDDDO8Z=$Z8+IZDOZ+ZI+D?88+78O8~=
I?ZDDDDNDN8N=+O+7II$7?ZO+Z$7I8DDOZ?DDII=
=~DDDONNNNNDZZOZZI+?Z+87OOZOZ$8D888D8+II
+=D8NNDDDNDD8N+Z,?OZ~?~88ODOZ+ODDD88DI:?
~~DDDDD8DNDDDO~??:,+7~=DD8DNDDD8788:D,::
~=D8==8DDNNNDO=$=?O$~I:DDO$?DDDDDDD=?OZ+
OD8DZONNDNNDNNN=~7~Z+,DNN8?$DNZZ?DDDO8$7
7O=O8:D78DZNZZN77$7OD8?7$I7=?~D$O8O~~Z7I
=Z$O88D$N$O8N88ZZZ$ON8NDNNZO7ON$7OD8?Z$~
IZD8ZOD8O$OOD$8DDNZNN$DDNN$8ZDNDO$DDZ8OI
7ZDO8ODDO8DOD8N88$ZNDDNDNN8DD8N8$OOZ8O$?
IZDNNNNN8NNNNNNNMZ7N=+Z7O=O7ZI:~DD8DD8OI
Z8DND+$Z+OD+NNNDN8DNDNNNN++I+$=ZDDDDDD8?
ONNDDNO8=D8NNNNDDZD8~NNNONNNNNN8NDDDDDD$
8D88ZNNNOONNNNNDDD$ODNDD8ZMNNDN8D8NNDDDI

There are amazing tools like aview - but again, that's an extra program which the user might not have.

If your album directories are sensibly named, the first hit is usually good enough.

Hang on! There's a mistake!

Quite probably, this is a quick and dirty script. I'm sure there are lots of edge case and (no-doubt) some poor coding practices. If you wish to contribute a patch, please drop it in the comments.