GIMP was initially designed for GNU/Linux, and most of its developers work on this operating system. Therefore, installing it on this system is especially easy. Moreover, the main GNU/Linux distributions provide automated tools for installing GIMP (if it’s not already installed by default). Of course, if your distribution was installed some months ago, and you do not regularly update it, most likely the version of GIMP on your system is not the latest one (i.e., 2.8), so you need to update your software. In most cases, simply updating your installation is enough.
With Debian, the simple command
apt-get install gimp
run as the root user installs GIMP and all its dependencies. But installing some additional packages can be handy. Here are the main ones:
gimp-gapis the GIMP Animation Package, described in Chapter 18.gimp-plugin-registrycontains many handy plug-ins and scripts, as described in Chapter 21.gimp-gmicis the G’MIC plug-in set, also described in Chapter 21.gnome-xcf-thumbnailerallows the GNOME desktop environment to display thumbnails of XCF files.gtkam-gimplinks GIMP toGtkamfor accessing photographs from a digital camera.gimp-gutenprintlinks toGutenprintfor a powerful and flexible interface to many printers.gimp-ufrawlinks GIMP toUfrawfor handling raw photographs taken from most digital still cameras.gimp-data-extrasoffers additional sets of brushes, palettes, and gradients.
These packages are simple to install using the synaptic graphic tool.
Because Ubuntu is a derivative of Debian, the installation instructions are the same. The only real differences are that, by default, Ubuntu has no root user and the installation command is
sudo apt-get install gimp
Since Ubuntu version 10.04, GIMP is no longer part of the installation CD, so you have to install it separately.
Mint is a relatively new GNU/Linux distribution that comes in two versions. Linux Mint 12 is based on Ubuntu and Linux Mint Debian on Debian. Thus the instructions for installing GIMP on Mint are the same as for these distributions, respectively.
With Fedora, the concepts are similar, but the commands are different. Run
yum install gimp
as the root user to install GIMP. The Fedora package database also contains the following packages:
gimp-data-extrasplays the same role as in Debian.gimpfx-foundryprovides a set of additional plug-ins.gimp-helpgives you access to GIMP help in a separate package.
The other plug-ins, including GAP, must be installed manually using the GIMP Plugin Registry.
With OpenSUSE, run
zypper install gimp
as the root user (if you are using the latest version of OpenSUSE). You must install all additional data or plug-ins manually.
With Mandriva, run
urpmi gimp
as the root user. Additional packages include the following:
gimp-data-extrasplays the same role as in Debian.gimp2-gapis the GAP plug-in set.gimpfx-foundryoffers you a set of additional plug-ins.gimp-helpgives you access to GIMP help in separate packages, depending on the language.
With other Unix-like operating systems, such as BSD versions or less well-known distributions of GNU/Linux, already compiled packages are not available, and your only solution is to compile GIMP and all the needed libraries from source text. This experience can be painful, although all this software is free and the source text freely available. Go to http://www.gimp.org/downloads/ and follow the instructions. Choose a mirror site near your location: This way you avoid overloading the main website and increase your download speed.