[Gimp-user] Problem with ufraw and Sony ARW raw files

[jeff cjsa com (Jeffery Small)]

OS:     Xubuntu 12.10
Gimp:   2.8.2 
UFRaw:  0.18

I just purchased a new Sony Alpha 77 camera and am having problems with
UFRaw and the conversion of the alpha raw (.arw) files.

I can use UFRaw to open my older Minolta .mrw raw files and they look fine.
However, all of the .arw files display extremely dark and with almost no
color other than a redish sepia tone.  This is the result that is also
passed into Gimp.

Something else that I notice:  Any attempt to manually adjust the white
balance results in a warning message:

   "Image: ChannelMultipliers: Value 0.000 to small to truncate to 0.100."

Selecting Auto WB results in something close to a B&W image.

These .arw files open properly in the Sony converter (on Windows) and also
appear to display properly in the Shotwell viewer.

Have other people using Alpha cameras seen this problem and is there a
known solution?  Thanks.

P.S.: Has anyone tried running the Sony Image Data Converter program using
Wine under Linux?