37

On Windows I really liked IrfanView as a basic image editor/manager. Some of the main features I liked were

  • great shortcut keys
  • good batch conversion options
  • ability to work with many image file formats
  • easy viewing of images in a folder
  • ability to open the program and paste the clipboard and do a quick save
  • simple cropping

Though it did have a lot of features, they tended not to get in the way of simple tasks.

What would be a good replacement on Ubuntu?

5
  • 2
    IrfanView runs fine with wine
    – Takkat
    May 24, 2011 at 9:42
  • 2
    It's impossible to say something will work unless you name some of the more obscure formats you occasionally need to handle. I'm not sure I'd recommend irfanview under Wine. Though it does work, it's nowhere near as lightweight.
    – Oli
    May 24, 2011 at 10:14
  • @Oli I guess the beauty of IrfanView was that it seemed like it could open just about any image format (especially if you installed the additional plugins). If it helps, I mostly use jpeg and png, but sometimes I'll interact with gif, bmp, eps, ps, tiff, various metafiles, and a host of other formats. May 24, 2011 at 10:27
  • 1
    AlternativeTo lists the top alternatives to IrfanView that run on Linux. Jan 10, 2017 at 15:43
  • Generally format compatibility in Linux is less restricted to the program and more a function of what libraries you have available for the program to reference. Nov 27, 2017 at 5:18

5 Answers 5

18

Nomacs is the best replacement for me. To install it:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:nomacs/stable
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install nomacs
5
  • 1
    This is definitely the closest to Irfanview out of the software mentioned. A very good replacement. Has really good batch processing and the view options and keystrokes are closer to Irfanview than any other Linux program I've ever tried. Nov 27, 2017 at 5:13
  • Works for me the best out of these recommendations, as you can easily just paste, crop and copy from the canvas without problems
    – Sergey
    Apr 1, 2018 at 17:30
  • 1
    on 16.04 it should in default repos, without having to resort to a PPA
    – sjas
    Jun 14, 2018 at 13:11
  • 1
    @sjas true, on 18.04 and newer it is even greater version in the universe repository.
    – jarno
    Nov 24, 2019 at 10:28
  • Nomacs so far is the only thing on this list that allows you to just open it and paste from the clipboard. But it appears the plugins are Windows only, so the Paint plugin for annotations remains unavailable on Linux. I might yet end up running Irfanview in Wine... Jan 11, 2021 at 11:34
18

The good replacement is gthumb. You can easily install it through Ubuntu Software Center. It has all functions that you require.

0
15

I suggest you the XnViewMP. I think it can do all the things you mentioned, I am using it for years now, on both Linux, and Windows.

2
  • 4
    "If you intend to use XnView in a company, you must purchase a license."
    – Csaba Toth
    Oct 13, 2016 at 17:11
  • I fiddled with XnViewMP for long enough and found a way for it to open in a view mode like Irfanview. It has almost twice as many image formats available as Nomacs, although Nomacs has some very interesting formats available that XnViewMP doesn't (save as .docx anyone?) Honestly they're both very, very good and could both be great replacements for Irfanview. I do not recommend gThumb, not only is it light on features, but a library it required started crashing my system and I couldn't get rid of it without uninstalling the whole program. Nov 27, 2017 at 6:10
4

I found that the good program Irfanview is now in the Snap Store. So you do not need to replace it under Linux.

If you like to install it on Ubuntu or other distros go to:

https://snapcraft.io/irfanview

3
2

The closest thing on Linux is XnView. Qua interface, you won't have problems. I use GwenView for viewing/rotating and XnView for what GwenView can't do.

1
  • 2
    XnViewMP is the successor of XnView. Jan 10, 2017 at 15:43

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