GIMP from Source

The official distribution of GIMP is the source code, distributed in tar files from the GIMP FTP site and its mirrors. The same source code can be compiled to create binaries for different platforms such as GNU/Linux, Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, Solaris and many others.

Stable releases

Is recommended for most users. Pre-compiled binaries of the stable GIMP are usually available for many platforms (see the platform-specific pages for more details), so you do not even have to compile the code yourself.

Development releases

For those who want to check the progress towards the next stable release, and who want to help the developers by testing the code and reporting bugs. The development version contains more features than the stable version but it may crash from time to time so be sure to save your work often. If you are using this version, it is a good idea to subscribe to some of the GIMP mailing lists (gimp-user or gimp-developer) so that you can follow the discussions about new features and known bugs.

Git repository

This is for those who want to live on the bleeding edge. This will give you the latest version of the source code with the latest features, but also with the latest bugs (eeek!). The repository contains several versions of the code called "branches" so you can fetch the latest version ("trunk") or a stable version from a maintenance branch. If you intend to contribute to the development of GIMP, then you should try using Git. As the code is constantly evolving and features are added (or removed) every day, you should have a look at the developers' site and subscribe to the gimp-developer mailing list if you compile the code from Git.

GIMP Source Code

The GIMP source code is distributed as tarballs. It is available from the GIMP FTP site and its mirrors.

GIMP Requirements

All requirements below must be met to be able compiling GIMP from source. This list might change depending on the releases being worked on during development of GIMP. Look at the files INSTALL and README in the tarballs for details.

Stable version 2.8.x

Package Version FTP HTTP Description
pkg-config 0.16.0 or newer - Download A system for managing library compile/link flags
GTK+ 2.24.10 or newer Download - The GIMP toolkit
GLib 2.30.2 or newer Download - Glib Convenience Library
Pango 1.29.4 or newer Download - Text layout engine, GIMP also requires PangoCairo — a Pango backend using Cairo
Fontconfig 2.2.0 or newer - Download Font Configuration
babl 0.1.10 or newer Download - Pixel format translation library
GEGL 0.2.0 or newer Download - Generic Graphics Library

GIMP from Git

The source code of GIMP is maintained in the GNOME Git repository. Besides offering version tracking, branching, avanced diff support and else, this repository grants everyone access to the latest revision of the GIMP source code.
Follow this guide and you will have the most recent GIMP in no time:

To find out more about GIMP development, http://developer.gimp.org/ should answer the questions you have.

Optional packages

To make it easy for you to understand how to get GIMP and what is required to run GIMP, the list of packages has been done below. Not only is the list for the required packages but also for the packages that can be added to support other things like fileformats etc.

Package FTP HTTP Description Dependency
aalib - Download ASCII art library Optional
libexif - Download EXIF tag support for JPEGs Optional
libjpeg Download - JPEG support Optional (explicit disable)
libpng Download Download PNG support Optional (explicit disable)
libtiff Download Download TIFF support Optional (explicit disable)
libmng - Download MNG support Optional (plugin won't be built)
libxpm Download Download XPM support Optional
librsvg Download Download Scalable Vector Graphics Optional (plugin won't be built)
libwmf - Download Library to convert wmf files Optional (plugin won't be built)
webkit - Download HTML renderer and web content engine Optional (Help Browser won't be built)
zlib Download Download Compression routines Optional
Python Download Download Python support Optional