How to use Eye of Gnome Image Viewer in Ubuntu

Eye of Gnome or the Image Viewer is the default picture/image viewing application in Ubuntu. It is available on most Ubuntu versions by default. It integrates with the GTK+ look and feel of GNOME, and supports many image formats for viewing single images or images in a collection. The Eye of GNOME also allows to view the images in a fullscreen slideshow mode or set an image as the desktop wallpaper. It reads the camera tags to automatically rotate your images in the correct portrait or landscape orientation.

If your system lacks it, or if you have deleted it by mistake, this article is here for your help. In this article, we will explain how to install this utility on your Ubuntu through the Ubuntu command line, the Terminal. We will also explain how you can use it to view images in Ubuntu and also how you can set it as a default application for opening/viewing photos.

We have run the commands and procedures mentioned in this article on a Ubuntu 18.04 LTS system.

Install Eye of Gnome

Being a Gnome application, Eye of Gnome is easily available through the Ubuntu Bionic Main repository. It can easily be installed through the command line using the apt-get command.

Open your Terminal application either through the system Application Launcher Search or through the Ctrl+Alt+T shortcut.

The next step is to update your system’s repository index through the following command:

$ sudo apt-get update

This helps you in installing the latest available version of software from the Internet. Please note that only an authorized user can add, remove and configure software on Ubuntu.

Now you are ready to install Image Viewer; you can do so by running the following command as sudo:

$ sudo apt-get install eog

Install eog (Eye Of Gnome)

The system might ask you the password for sudo and also provide you with a Y/n option to continue the installation. Enter Y and then hit enter; the software will be installed on your system. The process may, however, take some time depending on your Internet speed.

You can check the version number of the application, and also verify that it is indeed installed on your system, through the following command:

Get eog version

Launch and Use Eye of Gnome

You can launch the Eye of Gnome application by entering the keywords “image viewer” in the Application Launcher Search bar, as follows:

Image Viewer

You can also use the following command in the Terminal to launch the application:

$ eog &

This is how the Image Viewer UI looks like when no image is open:

Start eog from shell

You can use the settings menu, as displayed above, in order to open an image by browsing for it.

As mentioned before, Eye of Gnome is the default image viewer for Gnome. Therefore, whenever you open an image, it will open in the Image Viewer/EOG. In case it is not set as your default viewer, you can right click on an image and select Open with Other application, and then select Image Viewer from the list of applications.

Open Photo with Image Viewer in Ubuntu

You can also set Image Viewer as your default photo viewing tool through the Settings utility. The easiest way to do so it to search for “default applications” in the Application Launcher Search as follows:

Ubuntu Default Pallications

When you open the listed result entry, it will open the Settings utility in the Details>Default Applications view as follows:

Choose EOG as default image viewer in Ubuntu

In the Photos drop-down, select Image Viewer and it will now be set as your default photo viewing tool.

This was all about installing and using the Eye of Gnome. With this lightweight, secure, and easily available image viewer, you do not need to search for anything else.