Friday, May 04, 2012

GIMP 2.8 is out

[Link to the release notes.] [Via.] This is the first stable version to include single window mode, which is a massive improvement to the interface. (It's not on by default, look in the "Window" menu.) The application has become more tablet friendly, as well. I still prefer MyPaint for the responsiveness of its brush engine, and its infinite canvas feature. Ctrl+Paint is a digital painting resource worth mentioning here, as well.

In Ubuntu & its derivatives:
$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:otto-kesselgulasch/gimp && sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get -y install gimp

... Now about that name ...

Edit: Jason brought up a good point about being wary of PPAs in the comments. I thought I'd try rolling back to the version in the official repository to make sure I wasn't permanently breaking my system, and other people's, by installing version 2.8.

I ran:
$ sudo apt-get install ppa-purge
$ sudo ppa-purge ppa:otto-kesselgulasch/gimp


And the old version ran just fine. So I can leave this post up guilt-free.

6 comments:

Don J. said...

This looks like a massively improved release.

Don J. said...

First side comment:

I am mildly nervous about adding a repository named after some German guy's pot of meat stew. In general - PPA and system stability? What if Otto gets distracted with stirring in spices in the kitchen of his dirty little 5th floor apartment and botches compiling a bug-fix update?

Don J. said...

Second side comment:

(Known Regressions)
"GIMP 2.8 relies on a newer version of GTK+2 that unfortunately has partially broken support for graphics tablets such as Wacom. If your graphic tablet doesn't work in GIMP 2.8 as it should, we recommend downgrading to 2.6 until we release GIMP 3.0 that relies on GTK+3 which has fully functional support for advanced input devices."

Is it just me or is the entire "GNOME/GTK+ programming ecosystem" a mess right now?

GIMP is the fountain-head basis of GNOME - and they have come in with their brand spanking new major release based on . . . "a newer version of" GTK+2 . . . which was abandoned everywhere else over a year ago. Then of course there is that whole Gnome Shell, Unity, Mate, Cinnamon bruhaha. Umm, starting to look like a case study in philosophical models of Chaos Theory.

Pete said...

You have a healthy suspicion of PPAs. There is no way to use them without trusting strangers. I don't install too many of them, myself. The only other one I have installed right now is the Inkscape nightly builds, which is officially from the Inkscape team.

Another reason to dislike the PPA system is that it leaves other flavors of Linux high and dry.

I noticed the bit about the tablet problems after I posted. This is more a bug of GTK2 than of GIMP, and it sounds like no one is willing to fix it because it's fine in GTK3. I agree it's strange that GIMP isn't leading by example and using GTK3.

All of the different GUI toolkits don't bother me so much. It doesn't bother me if one window looks different from another on my desktop. Linux desktops will have to have GTK 2 and 3 on them for a very long time. Try to think of it as "messy vitality".

Pete said...

Oh, a bit more about the tablets: The problem is brush lag. I find it impossible to sketch in GIMP because of it. It's okay for texture painting and touch-up work, though, which are more up GIMP's alley. I think photo-editing and sketching/painting are different enough activities to warrant different programs.

Don J. said...

GIMP 2.8 installed with shiny new single window interface.

This is much more exciting to me than it really should be in the grand scheme of things.