After grabbing the GIMP distrubution and a gimp-data distrubution you are ready to compile and install. The main site for the latest offical Gimp distribution is ftp://ftp.gimp.org/pub/gimp/. The most recent official gimp-data can be found there too.

GIMP makes use of the Gimp Toolkit. The GIMP Toolkit, or GTK, can be found at ftp://ftp.gimp.org/pub/gtk/.

./configure; make;make install

If all goes well, a good while later, you will have a brand spanking new GIMP to play with. Unfortunately, it has been rumored that it isnt always that easy. So, here are a few common problems and some solutions

For some more specific info, you may want to read the INSTALL file from the main GIMP distribution.

General Compile Tips

Required Libraries Resources needed Well, it is neccesarry to have a C compiler and related tools to compile and install the source package. For the most part, GCC is recommended, but alot of effort has gone into making GIMP compile with as many compilers as possible. A fair amount of diskspace is needed too. For a full build with debugging, at least 100 megs free is recomended. Without debugging and with static libs turned off, GIMP can be compiled in 20-30 megs of space. This will vary depending on architecture of course. A full GIMP install including all the gimp-data packs can be 20 megs or more. A full GIMP compile takes 18-20 minutes on a PPro 200 or k-6 200 with 64 megs of ram. In general, expect about 4-5 times as long as a linux kernel compile (for linux systems of course). In other words, its a long compile. Thats what 300,000+ lines of code get you. Some sample build times k6-200, 64meg sdram, ide running Linux 19 minutes Pentium Pro 200, 96 megs, EIDE Running Linux 20 minutes Pentium 166, 64megs, Eide, running Linux 40 minutes Some sample gimp build directory sizes. Linux/alpha with debugging 135 megs for GIMP,40 megs for GTK Linux/x86 with debugging usually between 75-100 for GIMP, 30 megs for GTK Errors about not being able to find libgtk Starting with version .99.12, GIMP and GTK are distributed seperately. So it is neccesary to grab the latest GTK, complile it, and install it. And dont forget to run ldconfig (as root) after installing it. NOTE: GTK likes to install to /usr/local/lib. A lot of systems (most actually...) dont include /usr/local/lib in the search path for ldconfig by default, so you may need to do whatever is neccessary to make it search there. On Linux, this means adding /usr/local/lib to /etc/ld.so.conf. Different approaches may be needed for other systems.

Jpeg plugin doesnt compile
	The jpeg plugin requires the jpeg library. If you dont have it installed or you have a very old version, then you need to get a recent jpeg library. The places to look are: ftp://ftp.uu.net/graphics/jpeg/ ftp://ftp.gimp.org/pub/gimp/libs/ Once the lib is compiled and installed, run ldconfig as root and the jpeg plugin should compile

Tiff plugin doesnt compile
	Tiff plugin requires the tiff library. See the jpeg problem mentioned above. Same deal, different lib. The places to look are at: ftp://ftp.sgi.com/graphics/tiff/ ftp://ftp.gimp.org/pub/gimp/libs/ Once the lib is compiled and installed, run ldconfig as root and the tiff plugin should compile

PNG plugin doesnt compile
	Png plugin requires libpng and libz. See the jpeg problem mentioned above. Same deal, different lib. The places to look are at: ftp://ftp.uu.net/graphics/png/src/ ftp://ftp.gimp.org/pub/gimp/libs/ Once the lib is compiled and installed, run ldconfig as root and the png plugin should compile

XPM plugin doesnt compile
	XPM plugin requires the xpm library. See the jpeg problem above. Same deal, different lib. The places to look are at: ftp://ftp.x.org/contrib/libraries/

Other Compile Problems
	The best place to look for info of this sort is the Gimp Developers Faq, the Gimp Mailing Lists archives, or try #gimp on irc