Good evening folks,

spent some time last weekend installing and checking out the brandnew and shiny GIMP2. You probably have already heard that the gimp-crew has stitched together something quite amazing with this quantum-leap-release. To put it in a nutshell: Gimp 2.0 kicks botty!

Unfortunately the installation-procedure for the average linux-noob could get a little tricky. To limit headaches to a reasonable level ... here's a quick guideline to get the GIMP up and running on a linux-machine. Be warned though that it will take some time as you will compile roughly 1.73 Whateverbytes


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1. Leeching the stuff
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Check the official download page over at http://www.gimp.org/downloads/ and choose an apropriate mirror.

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2. Packages you will need
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It could be that you can skip one or the other package in case you have an up-to-date GNOME-machine or whatever. In my case (fresh MDK10 installation) it turned out that I needed the following ...

2.1 GTK v2.4 and supplementary stuff
These are ...

- glib-2.4.0.tar.bz2
- gtk+-2.4.0.tar.bz2
- atk-1.6.0.tar.bz2
- pango-1.4.0.tar.bz2

Also from the "//gimp/gtk/v2.4"-directory get all the stuff from the dependencies-folder, which are ...

- jpegsrc.v6b.tar.gz
- libpng-1.2.5.tar.gz
- pkgconfig-0.15.0.tar.gz
- tiff-v3.6.1.tar.gz

2.2 Freetype
I also sucked these two (dunno if those are mandatory, but it cant be bad if you have it on your machine in case some configure-pass demands it) ...

- freetype-2.1.7
(or the freetype package from ...
//gimp/plug-ins/v2.0/freetype)

2.3 Additional stuff
For your work later on with the GIMP it could be that you might want one/all of these add-ons

- GIMP help-files
(v2.0 help-fiels are still very incomplete)

- gimp-print-package
(which is rather heavy (~5MB) and was therefore
skipped as I print images from other apps anyway)

and last but not least ...

2.3 The Gimp
.. in an incarnation of your liking. I picked

- gimp-2.0.0.tar.bz2

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3. Installation
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Before you begin, meditate and tell yourself the following over and over again ...

I will launch every "./configure" with the parameter "--prefix=/usr"

Having said this, begin compiling and installing the packages in the following order ...

3.1 atk-1.6.0
Change to atk-dir and launch the following commands

root@somehost atk-xxx: ./configure --prefix=/usr
followed by ...
root@somehost atk-xxx: make
followed by ...
root@somehost atk-xxx: make install

If you want to save diskspace you can add a final
root@somehost atk-xxx: make clean

3.2 freetype-2.1.7
... is the next to compile/install. The command sequence is ...
(A) "./configure --prefix=/usr", ("make", © "make install" ... and optional (D) "make clean"

3.2 Dependencies
Go into the "dependencies"-folder and perform these tasks ...

- pkg-config-0.15.0 commands: (A)->(->©->(D) see above
- jpeg-6b ... commands: (A)->(->©->(D)
- libpng-1.2.5 ... commands: (->©->(D) no "configure"!
- tiff-3.6.1 ... commands: (A)->(->©->(D)

3.3 The heavy stuff
Continue with these packages in the following order ...

- glib-2.4.0 ... commands: (A)->(->©->(D)
- pango-1.4.0 ... commands: (A)->(->©->(D)
- gtk+-2.4.0 ... commands: (A)->(->©->(D)

3.4 The GIMPster
And last but not least compile the GIMP itself. If you have skipped the gimp-print package then call "configure like this"

- ./configure --prefix=/usr --disable-print

If you have d/l it then you have to compile and install it prior to GIMP. Whatever way .. carry on with the usual "make", "make install" and "make clean".

After this you should be able to behold the magnificence of this outstanding image manipulation-proggy.

4. Optional tasks for single-user-machines
If you're on a single user machine you can link your personal "brushes", "gradients", "pattern"-folders to the global ones if you like. To do that ...

root@machine /:cd ~/.gimp-2.0
(change to gimp-folder in your home-dir

and perform something like this ...
rm -f brushes; ln -s /usr/share/gimp/2.0/brushes brushes;
rm -f fonts; ln -s /usr/share/gimp/2.0/fonts fonts

and so on ...

The folders that could be linked are ...
gfig, gflare, gimpressionist, gradients, palettes, patterns and scripts.

Just to be on the safe side: This is really optional and should not be done in multiuser-environments, but if case you want your stuff concentrated ...


Well, hope I haven't got anything hideously wrong and that this sheds some light for GIMP-newcomers as this outstanding program is just too .. erm ... outstanding to not get it up and running

evening