LINUX LIGHTS

I’ve been wanting to try out GIMP 2.5 for quite some time now, and plenty of other folks are certainly looking forward to the new interface, among other things. In my somewhat limited observations of the GIMP development team, I’ve found that the volunteers who manage the project are what some would call “anal retentive.”

Put the shoe on the other food, and I might be totally off the mark here, but this is the common thread I see:
There are not enough people working on the GIMP. It must not be very sexy to toil away at code forging for the GIMP project, meanwhile Compiz-Fusion, WINE, Ubuntu developers are in the limelight every day with new features and lots of community interaction.

GIMP on the other hand, with limited resources hears the crowd of folks basically asking for a free $600 Photoshop clone. That’s not what the GIMP wants or needs. If you want Photoshop, go buy the damn thing!

One guy even went so far as to fork GIMP by creating GIMPshop which added the main window workspace design that Photoshop uses. People liked it, I used it for awhile myself. Having such a huge carrot hanging in front of their heads is no easy task. And if one of these developers went postal one of these end users asked the same fsckin question the last guy did, I wouldn’t be very surprised.

That said, it looks like fantastic progress is being made on GIMP 2.5, and the interface is fantastic to be putting it mildly. OHHHH it’s so good. Adobe was right, this is the way to do things, much more intuitive as well. Too bad it’s taken over a decade of development to realize this fact.

So what I did was write a bash script to update or install GIMP from SVN, and compile it so that your original 2.4 installed will NOT be touched and can be launched normally using the command “gimp” or “gimp-2.4″

That said, I’ve tested this on two machines. My nearly new install of 8.04 with few extra programs installed. I started the project manually, but then found quite a bit more to just get it all working at once. Trust me folks… if you install 2.5 and you aren’t satisfied, I’ll give you double your money back. That’s a promise.

The only thing I’ve noticed so far is some “weirdness” occurring when trying to run both versions at the same time.

Updates, patches, suggestions to this script are more than welcome. I’ll say that my code not formally licensed, but don’t claim you wrote this or strip the authors section out of the header. I inevitably find you and DMCA you to hell and back if you do, just like those silly CoreAVC guys. PR Stunt for the win!

#!/bin/bash
# gimpsvn.sh — Installs or updates The GIMP from SVN
# Usage: gimpsvn.sh [install | update]
#
# Original instructions by http://www.myscienceisbetter.info/
# Updated instructions by Thai at http://dt.in.th/
# Script by Wayne Richardson at http://fsckin.com/
#
# Takes about 20 minutes on an Intel Core2Quad Q6600 on a fresh install.
# Be patient!
# This uses Wajig, which can easily install reccomended/suggested packages.
# http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wajig
#
# Most recent version is at:
# http://www.fsckin.com/2008/05/07/gimpsvnsh-installs-or-updates-gimp-25-from-svn
#
# Variable(s):
#   makeops -- the number of cores your system has, generally -j(cores+1)
makeops='-j5'

if [ $# -ne 1 ]
then
echo “Specify an command line option: install or update.”
exit 1
fi

if [ "$1" = "install" ]
then
echo Installing Gimp from SVN in 5 seconds, CTRL+C to abort.
sleep 5
sudo mkdir /opt/gimpsvn
sudo mkdir /opt/gimpsvn/lib
sudo mkdir /opt/gimpsvn/lib/pkgconfig
#sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install wajig -y
sudo apt-get build-dep gimp -y
sudo wajig installrs gimp -y
sudo apt-get install libavcodec-dev libavcodec1d libavformat1d -y
sudo apt-get install libavformat-dev graphviz graphviz-cairo graphviz-dev -y
sudo apt-get install libfaad-dev libfaac-dev ruby-gnome2 gtk-doc-tools -y
sudo apt-get install subversion automake1.9 asciidoc flex checkinstall -y
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/opt/gimpsvn/lib
export PKG_CONFIG_PATH=/opt/gimpsvn/lib/pkgconfig
for i in babl gegl gimp; do svn co http://svn.gnome.org/svn/$i/trunk/ \
$i; cd $i; ./autogen.sh --prefix=/opt/gimpsvn && make $makeops && sudo \
checkinstall; cd ..; done
echo “”
echo “Completed install from SVN into the following location:”
echo “/opt/gimpsvn/bin/gimp-2.5″
exit 1
fi

if [ "$1" = "update" ]
then
echo Updating Gimp from SVN in 5 seconds, CTRL+C to abort.
sleep 5
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/opt/gimpsvn/lib
export PKG_CONFIG_PATH=/opt/gimpsvn/lib/pkgconfig
svn co http://svn.gnome.org/svn/gimp/trunk/ gimp
for i in babl gegl gimp; do svn co http://svn.gnome.org/svn/$i/trunk/ \
$i; cd $i; make $makeops && sudo checkinstall; cd ..; done
echo “”
echo “Completed update from SVN into the following location:”
echo “/opt/gimpsvn/bin/gimp-2.5″
exit 1
fi

echo “Specify an command line option: install or update.”
exit 1