Linux Desktop never needed GIMP like a regular Windows user never needed Photoshop. Photoshop is “start at work in the morning” software and GIMP is its “artist’s impression”.
What Linux Desktop needed was Jasc/Corel Paint Shop Pro and its modern reincarnation Paint.NET.
But it was never made, imo.
Most tools are either too heavy and similar to GIMP, or indistinguishable from mspaint, or simple photo filters for “editing” photos.
Similar to this, I still install irfanview via wine in my linux desktop. There's just nothing close to it. I tried some suggestions like nomacs but they are just not there.
And not the non-destructive editing that is the big thing IMO. I will likely finally say bye to Photoshop. Lightroom was replaced with darktable two years ago.
If you want to replace Photoshop with something open source, I recommend Krita, everytime I give gimp a try it ends up being a frustrating waste of time.
I remember excitedly reading the announcement for gegl that was finally going to bring non-destructive editing to gimp. If I'd been told it was going to take at least 20 years to actually happen I would not have believed you.
Note that this was the case for Blender pre-2.8, too.
The issue with any software of this complexity is tech debt. If anything, GIMP should be a big warning sign about what happens if you bet on e.g. a UI framework which moves on without you.
GTK's development and release schedule is pretty aggressive, especially with the even releases being stable and the odd releases being unstable (which no other library on the planet decided to do so). A lot of cross platform software decided to a refactor to QT because of that, and I'd argue that the problem lies with upstream GTK and its failed API stability promises along the way.
In open source projects, you cannot afford to bet on unstable UI frameworks because you don't have enough time to spend on refactors like this. If every second subminor GTK version breaks your code, it's just not possible to keep up with that.
I'm actually impressed that GIMP wasn't fully abandoned because the sheer amount of code that needed to be rewritten is massive.
The extra irony here is that both apps built their own, entirely custom UIs rather than settle for dependencies on existing kits... The big difference with GIMP was that its toolkit was built to be separable from the rest of the app and eventually became its own project, while Blender's is just ... Blender.
I suspect if you described the architecture of the two apps without naming them, most devs would predict disaster for the latter. But as you say, it has not worked out this way; indeed, GTK has repeatedly dropped or... gimped... functionality that originally existed to facilitate productive interaction with the GIMP UI (such as fast custom shortcut keys), while Blender's UI remains bespoke and quirky, but also insanely powerful.
GIMP got stuck in the 2.8 branch because of the GTK3 changes back then, which changed a lot in the display tree and structure of the "css graph" (not sure how to describe it properly). I think that was also when they introduced their variants of expandable boxes similar to flexbox, but maybe a dev finds this and can chime in with more details on that.
I'd argue that GTK's goal of transforming into something more modern kind of lost GIMP because it was moving too fast.
I'm not blaming GTK for that, I get it, and GNOME has its goals and everything. But they're changing technologies so fast that nobody can keep up with it outside their gitlab bubble. Just thinking of the Vala introduction and GIR, for example, makes me think of never wanting to bet on their ecosystem.
They are kind of alienating themselves with the not-invented-here syndrom and too many experimental innovations that have similar already adopted counterparts in the language ecosystem.
I was investing big in gtk as my main ui toolkit (writing complex widgets, containers and rendering via “engine” interfaces), but all this 3+ pissed me off quickly. Gnome was, and is, how you lose everyone around except for yourself and that abstract idiot you’re developing for, which is often the same person.
Note that inkscape has around 70-80 part time developers, and even a project this size is reluctant to keep up with GTK.
My projects (written by a single part time dev) can never keep up with GTK. So I think you are actually arguing against GTK when it comes to resources necessary to use GTK, without realizing it.
Inkscape is a huge development project and most open source projects are way smaller than that, maintained by less than 5 people. I'd also like to point out that GTK4 is older than 6 years by now, and the UI/input flow changes that come with it (breaking old program architectures again).
GIMP originally used the Motif widget library but it was not freely available so they later created GTK back in 1996 probably because there was not many other options. It was only a few years later did projects like Gnome came out.
Personally I use Flatpak for two Electron apps (VSCode and Ferdium) and one GTK+ app that was never had issues with major versions (LibreOffice). GNOME apps in my case are all installed via rpm, so my experience seems to be the opposite.
GTK broke API twice in over twenty years (2->3 and 3->4), and you can parallel-install older versions. I have never heard anyone having to install specific minor releases of GTK due to breakages in the application API (theming is a different story).
I'm specifically talking about developing gnome apps. The developer documentation for Gnome uses Gnome Builder which installs a flatpack based SDK for you by default. Flatpack, it seems, is the golden path to create Gnome apps.
That's just because it lets the developer control the distribution of the app without having to find packagers in at least four distros (Fedora, Debian, OpenSUSE, Arch). Using Flatpak for the GNOME libraries is a design choice for Flatpak itself and applies to KDE apps as well.
Coming from Photoshop (but now just an occasional user), I tried it when I was ditching Adobe but just found its interface extremely clunky and annoying to use. I’m on macOS so I ended up trialing and buying Pixelmator Pro. I would have looked at Affinity Photo failing that.
Blender’s interface is not super intuitive but I hear once you learn it the UI is good. On the other hand, Gimp felt to me like having a lot of rough edges that would always annoy me.
I’m sorry but Krita is actually usable. I have managed to use Krita successful with many projects while with gimp every project ends in frustration and failure.
Funny, because for my simple but over-mspaint editing needs I still prefer GIMP over Krita (and I hate both, ofc). Krita screams “you are a graphics artist”, which nope I’m not. It’s the same mess to me, only starts even slower and thinks that (x, y) / (w x h) is an irrelevant detail.
I used Blender in the early days. It was fast, quick to use, and intuitive once you learned the controls. It made me wonder why other apps couldn't just use Blender's toolkit.
I also used Gimp around that time. It was already quite old. Despite all the functionality, it felt clunky and I wondered why they couldn't use Photoshop's UX - Adobe had already spent millions figuring it out for them.
My guess is that Blender is an effort by artists who created software to help them, and Gimp is an effort by software engineers who created what they feel is a "good enough" open source alternative.
I don't know which "early days" you're referring to, but I remember these complaints already in the very early '00s.
...and then I tried Photoshop for the first time. It was every bit as clunky, but made up for that by also being sloooooow (at least on whatever OS X PowerPC machines the lab had back then). Couldn't figure out why anyone used it.
...then I watched someone who actually knew how to use it use it. It was still slow, still clunky, but they made that weird UI dance.
There are still plenty of apps like that. Particularly when you get into stuff like A/V where no amount of UI glitz will paper over the reality that a few poorly-chosen commands can bring the beefiest machine to its knees. You either spend the time learning how to use the software on its own terms, or suffer.
Having used Photoshop professionally in the early 00's to late 00's, I don't recall it being slow. I do remember liking Open Office and Gnome a lot - so much so that I switched to Linux on my personal computer - but Gimp was not great.
This is a great question for which I don't have an answer :-)
GIMP was my go-to ever since Paint Shop Pro was acquired by Corel (in 2006 sigh!). Then a few years back I switched fully to Mac and GIMP became borderline unusable, specially at high resolutions. Ever since I'm a bit lost when it comes to picking a new raster graphics editor. Maybe I should try Paint Shop Pro again! The pricing seems to be reasonable.
If Blender is what good UI/UX looks like then I'm glad GNU is here to protect us.
Blender has the advantage that its commercial competitors are just as bad or worse. GIMP competes with everything from MS Paint to Photoshop so the standards are different.
It also helps that Photoshop's bizarre non-standard UI has been taught for decades now. Access to some tools and features is a little better than in the ooen source versions but it's still a remarkably terrible UI for a tool used so commonly.
Because it sucks. Have you tried to draw an arrow in it? Or add some text to an image and then move the text without figuring out you need to like double click or click hold or whatever to not move the text and instead move the background layer for some reason? Good luck.
I'm chiming on this because as a former GIMP user I don't feel like it "sucks" as a whole but rather that it "sucks" at pretty "basic" stuff, which makes it seem like the whole thing is rubbish.
And it sucks at basic things because its devs deliberately wanted it to be like that. Go ask them why you have to do the thing you mentioned or why it is easier to draw a circle in frigging MS Paint than with GIMP without them turning ultradefensive. Yes, it has happened to me - was heavily downvoted at r/linux some years ago (and at Lemmy like a couple weeks ago) only because I mentioned this.
GIMP has serious UX flaws its devs are not humble enough to recognize that for some reason and it hurt GIMP so much for so long. It "sucks" not because lack or resourcesz lack of time to work on it or lack of manpower,as they want to frame it - but lack of humbleness from its devs.
On the bright side it seems this can be the end of that stupid mentality as they are welcoming new devs and gathered a UI/UX team.
Just make it work like PS. Everything is different, non intuitive, a mess. And whenever you sit down and try to work with it you get nervous breakdowns because everything is all over the place. And then you give up and get back to PS.
I have a feeling that this new version will have all the same issues.
I honestly quit recommending Gimp due to its name. Name changes are challenging of course, but not impossible. I understand the developers have a lot on their plates with the 3.0 transition and keeping up with GTK, but I really hope they can make a bit of time to prioritize a more community-friendly name for the project.
Names matter a ton. I would never recommend a product called "Gimp" in a professional environment. The fact that the GIMP team has heard this feedback for multiple decades and ignored it says a lot - both about their ability to take community feedback and about how much they care about ever being a professional tool.
There are two tools: BoringThing and Ninja Sex Death Cult. They both accomplish the same task, but I can recommend one to friends and family without immediately having to explain the name. So I'll use and recommend BoringThing.
This is very much the same notion that comes up whenever CockroachDB is mentioned. IIRC at one point they had a "white-label" project generator where you could come up with your own name and branding, and it would bake it into the checked out sources. It might make sense to create one for the photo editor as well.
Edit: Ninja Sex Death Cult is a pretty good band name though!
Why would the name ‘CockroachDB’ be an issue? Cockroaches are just insects, but the word ‘gimp’ is actually a slur in some cultures (Cambridge dictionary labels the first definitions from both the US and UK as “informal offensive”).
So I think it is worth changing the name in this case. Actually being a slur is a problem, in stark contrast to another recent example, where as far as I can see the reasons around changing Git’s ‘master’ branch name are totally artificial - the word ‘master’ is of course not a slur, and despite claims that it necessarily invokes the idea of slavery, it clearly has a multitude of uses that have nothing to do with slavery, such as ‘master recording’ or ‘masters degree’ so the idea that the word by itself is ‘not inclusive’ is quite baseless in my opinion.
So being a slur is a real problem in a way that being the name of a slightly unpleasant insect (like CockroachDB) or hypothetically (but not really) invoking the idea of slavery really shouldn’t be.
I tried for a long time to not be bothered and chuckle at the naming mistake. However, it is a bit fatiguing to repeatedly explain to people that the project name isn’t intended to be offensive when they interpret the name in any of the common meanings.
In particular, I’m not going to introduce the Gimp to my ten-year-old son who is interested in art and gamedev, simply because I feel like the meanings/slang are a bit age-inappropriate to discuss and I don’t want him to inadvertently offend anyone.
I agree fully, but there’s more than that. It’s just bad marketing! Like, don’t conjure this image into people’s heads when thinking about your product! It seems like they care more about making some juvenile point about how offensive words shouldn’t be a problem rather than the popularity of their thing.
Just find some name that conjures some pretty image like ”GNU Constellation” or whatever and be done with it.
It's not misinterpreted. Misinterpretation is an accident that happens when a good faith message can be reasonably interpreted in multiple ways, and the listener's choice is not the speaker's choice. A good faith message is one where the speaker deliberately removes all likely ambiguity they can foresee.
When a bad faith message is "misinterpreted", it's because the speaker was not interested in communicating successfully in the first place.
There exist two things:
1. A name which amuses the developers by honoring an uninteresting bit of historical trivia.
2. A name which contributes to the project's health and success by attracting new users.
One of these things must be selected as more important than the other.
As far as whether GIMP, in and of itself, succeeds or fails, pretty much no one cares. If GIMP vanished, and the practical value lost to the world was big enough, some new project would spring up to take its place. Maybe Krita would expand its scope. The Blender team sure has bank to play with. Whatever.
But what lots of people do care about is the success of open source in general. When software is expensive and closed, fewer people get to use it, and the fewest of them are screwed if what they need is too niche. When software is free and open, more people get to use it, niches become less niche, and niches that remain niche can be filled by anyone with enough DIY motivation. And because all of the benefits of open source rely on a large user community, attracting users is very important, both to individual projects and the whole community.
And right now, the solution the open source community has to offer the world is an embarrassment. This is bad. The GIMP project is selfishly pissing in the water supply the entire open source community is trying to build. No one is going to take that trivially.
>I recommend not being so bothered about trivialities like names being misinterpreted.
I'd recommend looking up "gimp" in an image search, and not dismissing valid concerns as trivialities.
On the note of misinterpretation, I'd recommend looking the word "gimp" in a dictionary[1], which offers this:
gimp(n.): 1. offensive : a disabled person
The "explanation" that GIMP stands for GNU Image Manipulation Package works if you're an edgy 13-year-old. Beyond that, any sane person would question the wisdom of using that particular acronym (and why not go for BOOBS or FATCOCK if you really don't care).
DuckDuckGo, the #1 search engine that most people use, sure.
Why don't you get off your kink-shaming horse and use Google, from a private window or friend's machine (because I don't know what's going on with your search history either).
Finally, saying "You got BDSM stuff when you looked for this software package? Oh, you must be one of those people, I get nothing like that" is a sure way to get people to never use the software in question.
That's beside the point that you are not earnest here by using an niche search engine to say what you "got".
Thankfully, I'm working from home. One could literally get fired if this showed up on a monitor in the office. Prison in some countries if kids see that in school too.
But sure, it's not an issue for you, so what's the problem?
You can be coy all you want, software named BIGFATCOCK isn't going to be used in K12 setting or government/corporate environments in English-speaking countries, and neither is GIMP.
To get things out of the way: BIGFATCOCK does not mean anything offensive in languages other than English, and there's nothing wrong with big, fat cocks.
It's just a bad name for e.g. spreadsheet software, as the established meaning of the name has nothing to do with the functionality of the software.
Same with GIMP. You can stick fingers in your ears and scream "la la la" all day long, and wonder why GIMP isn't picking up steam like Blender did for the next 20 years — your call.
Between blenders and BDSM gear, guess which one is usually OK to discuss at a workplace, and which one creates a potential for a hostile work environment or sexual harassment.
Compare and contrast:
-"Hey Lauren, check out this new blender I got yesterday!"
-"Hey Lauren, check out this new gimp suit I got yesterday!"
Or:
-"Hey Mary, the facilities put a new blender in the kitchen area, I just tried it, and really enjoyed it! Give it a go, I know you're into that kind of stuff."
-"Hey Mary, the facilities put a new gimp suit in the kitchen area, I just tried it, and really enjoyed it! Give it a go, I know you're into that kind of stuff."
>But you know, the real question is : how the hell would you know such slang
You people thinking that kink shaming is a great way to popularize a graphics editor named after the said kink will never cease to amaze me.
The answer is: I googled "gimp", and things other than the graphics editor came up. Curious, huh?
>I do not care
Oh, but you do. If you didn't, you wouldn't be here, typing nonsense.
"I do not care" is wonderful phrase that adds nothing to the discussion 100% of the time, because the set of people interested in what you, personally, do not care about is as empty as the informational content of your comment.
I do not care how you got BDSM in google's front page, while myself, typing "gimp", has: gimp.org, apps.microsoft.com, wikipedia.org etc
I had to go to page 9 (!!) to get something unrelated with the software: "noun verb (used without object) to limp; walk in a halting manner: a sprain that made her gimp for weeks."
>I do not care how you got BDSM in google's front page
Google, helpfully, explained to me:
"People also ask"
"What is a GIMP?"
Meaning of gimp in English
"an unpleasant or stupid person: I can't stand that gimp. US informal offensive. a person with a physical disability, especially one that affects someone's legs.
GIMP | English meaning - Cambridge Dictionary
What does the slang word "gimp" mean?
In any of its meanings, deeply insulting, unpleasant, or otherwise, (a stupid person, a person with a physical disability, a sadomasochistic sexual partner, a trimming, a fishing-line), spelt ...
I understand that slang and curse words may not be as jarring or impactful to non-native speakers. I hear Finnish curse words regularly and they don’t bother so much.
My concern is that non-native speakers still use dictionaries and search engines, so easily learn about the meanings of words.
Additionally, I’ve tried to promote the GIMP in educational environments but the fact remains that teachers and parents are often averse to using the name.
Well, if for any reason you went "hey, what the hell does that mean" and decided to look it up:
- (informal offensive) an unpleasant or stupid person:
- (informal offensive) a person with a physical disability, especially one that affects someone's legs
- (informal) a limp (= a way of walking slowly and with difficulty because of having an injured or painful leg or foot )
- a person who gets sexual pleasure from being hurt or treated badly
And it's not like this is super obscure or anything. The "most influential film of the 90s", Pulp Fiction, literally had a character that was "the gimp". This is pretty mainstream.
This is along the lines of "Hey co-worker, I found the best text editor the other day. It's called pizdă, you should give it a try! Pizdă seems like it would help you!"
>I just did and all the results are related to this software, so what is your point?
My point in this case would be that you're either blind or lying if you don't get any BDSM costume pictures mixed in. Or, at best, that Google gave you personalized search results that aren't what people see when they do the same search.
Try doing it from a private window / a friend's machine.
Also, look up "GIMP suite" (suite is not uncommon to refer to software packages). Have fun.
>I'm just going to leave these here: "Cute girl wearing a Free BSD costume"
Please leave your nonsense elsewhere, and don't pollute this forum with cliches devoid of thought.
If you have a point to make, do so, and figure it out before you say it.
In any case: a "gimp suit" only means one thing, it has always meant that one thing, before GIMP-the-software was a thing.
This doesn't apply to "things you left here", so please put them where they belong.
This is why searches for GIMP will inevitably land on BDSM imagery. A teacher that tells kids to "use gimp" (or, Cthulhu forbid, the GIMP suite) is risking their job no matter how many things you suggestively leave around.
What Linux Desktop needed was Jasc/Corel Paint Shop Pro and its modern reincarnation Paint.NET.
But it was never made, imo.
Most tools are either too heavy and similar to GIMP, or indistinguishable from mspaint, or simple photo filters for “editing” photos.