--------------------------------------- Installation instructions for GIMP @GIMP_APP_VERSION@ --------------------------------------- There are some basic steps to building and installing GIMP. GIMP @GIMP_APP_VERSION@ replaces earlier GIMP 2.10.x versions. It is advised to uninstall them before installing GIMP @GIMP_APP_VERSION@. Since libgimp* libraries and data are all versionned anyway, it is possible to keep your older GIMP 2.x installation in parallel to GIMP @GIMP_APP_VERSION@ on a same prefix. GIMP @GIMP_APP_VERSION@ is not backward compatible with GIMP 2.10 and earlier versions. Plug-ins and scripts written for GIMP 2.10, 2.8, 2.6 or earlier GIMP 2.x versions will not work because the API changed. The most important part is to make sure the requirements for a build are fulfilled. We depend on a number of tools and libraries which are listed below. For libraries this means you need to also have the header files installed. This file is generated (versions are filled by our build system) and focuses on keeping an up-to-date list of dependencies intended to packagers, contributors or whoever wants to compile GIMP from source. Building and running self-built software often requires more setup, in particular environment variables so that your system knows where to find the various pieces of the software. The following document can help in that regard: https://developer.gimp.org/core/setup/build/ ****************************************************************** * Unless you are experienced with building software from source, * * you should not attempt to build all these libraries yourself! * * We suggest that you check if your distributor has development * * packages of them and use these instead. * ****************************************************************** 1. You need to have installed a recent version of pkg-config available from: https://www.freedesktop.org/software/pkgconfig/ The compatible pkgconf utility would also work. 2. You need gettext version 0.19.8 or newer. Older versions did not have support yet for certain file formats. 3. You need to have GEGL version @GEGL_REQUIRED_VERSION@ or newer and babl version @BABL_REQUIRED_VERSION@ or newer. You can get them from https://gegl.org/ or clone them from the GNOME git repository: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/babl.git https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gegl.git GEGL must be built with Cairo support, i.e. -Dcairo=enabled option (required for some mandatory operations such as "gegl:npd"). Introspection must be enabled for both babl and GEGL with -Denable-gir=true and -Dintrospection=true respectively. The only case where we don't build GIR data is when cross-compiling because of the difficulty to make cross-tools for GObject Introspection. Nevertheless if you have working GIR cross-tools, you can force the expected behavior with GIMP's meson option -Dcan-crosscompile-gir=true Optional: - build GEGL with libumfpack (SuiteSparse) (`-Dumfpack=enabled`) for alternative Matting engine "gegl:matting-levin" and OpenEXR library (`-Dopenexr=enabled`) for OpenEXR format support. - build GEGL with maxflow (https://github.com/gerddie/maxflow) and the option -Dworkshop=true in order to be able to select the experimental Paint Select tool in the Playground (operation "gegl:paint-select" is needed). - The "Show Image Graph" item in the "Debug" menu (hidden by default on stable release) requires the GEGL operation "gegl:introspect" which is always built but deactivated unless the `dot` tool from graphviz is available (runtime dependency). 4. You need to have installed GTK version @GTK_REQUIRED_VERSION@ or newer. GIMP also needs a recent version of GLib (>= @GLIB_REQUIRED_VERSION@), GDK-Pixbuf (>= @GDK_PIXBUF_REQUIRED_VERSION@), and Pango (>= @PANGO_REQUIRED_VERSION@). Sources for these can be grabbed from https://download.gnome.org/sources/. 5. We use cairo >= @CAIRO_REQUIRED_VERSION@, which is hosted at https://www.cairographics.org/. 6. We require PangoCairo, a Pango backend using Cairo. Make sure you have Cairo, FreeType2 and fontconfig installed before you compile Pango. GIMP depends on freetype2 being newer than version @FREETYPE2_REQUIRED_VERSION@ and fontconfig @FONTCONFIG_REQUIRED_VERSION@ or newer. Older versions are known to have bugs that seriously affect the stability of GIMP. On Windows, we recommend fontconfig 2.13.95 (or over) where support of fonts in user directory (Windows 1809 feature) appeared. We also require HarfBuzz @HARFBUZZ_REQUIRED_VERSION@ or newer, an OpenType text shaping tool. As this is a dependency for Pango, you will likely have it installed, but you may have to install a development package for the headers. 7. The file-compressor plug-in requires zlib, libbzip2, and liblzma to be installed. All these libraries are required dependencies. 8. For metadata access GIMP requires the gexiv2 @GEXIV2_REQUIRED_VERSION@ or newer library. It is hosted at: https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/gexiv2 9. libpng, libjpeg, libtiff, librsvg and lcms are hard dependencies that can not be disabled. poppler is also a hard dependency because PDF is too common nowadays for it to be an option (at least for import); and poppler-data (CJK and Cyrillic support in PDF) is also required because no languages should be considered "second class citizen". If we support PDF, let's support it properly, i.e. exhaustively. There might be some issues with librsvg, based on the fact newer versions are in Rust which is not buildable on all platforms. Yet SVG support was deemed too important to be considered "optional" for a decent graphics activity. Nevertheless a packager really intent to have GIMP running on an architecture with no Rust support could still: 1) easily patch out the file-svg plug-in from build system; 2) build GIMP with -Dvector-icons=false. Ironically librsvg is needed at build time for this option, in order to create PNG variants of icons (making librsvg unneeded at runtime). So all it takes is to have a build machine with librsvg to create the PNG icons, package and deliver them for machines without librsvg. This is the compromise we came with, i.e. officially making SVG a first-class file format, yet explaining how you could ignore it if you really wanted or needed to. 10. For MyPaint brushes, brushlib (libmypaint) @LIBMYPAINT_REQUIRED_VERSION@ is used. The libmypaint repository is hosted at: https://github.com/mypaint/libmypaint If installing from repository, do not install the master branch! Checkout the last tag "v1.y.z" from `libmypaint-v1` branch instead (for instance "v1.6.1" tag at time of writing), or simply install from a tarball or from your favorite package manager. In particular, do NOT install tags or release tarballs versioned "v2.y.z". GIMP depends on the version 1 of libmypaint and is incompatible with the version 2 (which is still experimental anyway and has no stable release at time of writing). 11. We also need the mypaint-brushes data package: https://github.com/mypaint/mypaint-brushes If installing from repository, install from branch "v1.3.x" or the last tag "v1.y.z" (e.g. "v1.3.1" at time of writing). In particular do NOT install from `master` branch which installs brushes incompatible with GIMP (the `master` branch and v2 brushes are targeted to software using recent libmypaint which GIMP wasn't ported to yet). Also this is a data packages and therefore it will install the pkg-config file inside `$PREFIX/share/pkgconfig/`. If you install mypaint-brushes from repository in a non-standard prefix, you will have to make sure your $PKG_CONFIG_PATH environment variable also lists `$PREFIX/share/pkgconfig/`. 12. GIMP uses GLib's GIO library to handle file URIs and any I/O in general, transparently, regardless where the file is stored, i.e. locally, remotely, with which scheme, and so on. GIO in turn supports various backends through modules. We don't know all the modules available but since HTTP and HTTPS are so pervasive nowadays, we kind of consider a least GIO modules for these schemes mandatory (it allows to open from a pasted URL or just drag'n drop from e.g. a browser). For HTTP support (and many other schemes), on Linux at least, you should install `gvfs`: https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/gvfs It is unclear whether `gvfs` can be built and installed on other platforms such as Windows and macOS. For HTTPS support, you should install `glib-networking`: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/glib-networking Of course there might be more modules providing support of more storage backends. Ideally GIMP would have support to load from any backend so packaging together with more GIO modules or recommending them in a package manager would be ideal. In any case, installing the ones for HTTP and HTTPS seems like the minimum nowadays. 13. You may want to install other third party libraries or programs that are needed for some of the available plug-ins. We recommend to check that the following libraries are installed: openjpeg, libmng, libwmf, libaa and libgs (Ghostscript). 14. HEIF support depends on the libheif library. If you don't have access to pre-built packages, the code is available at: https://github.com/strukturag/libheif Make sure you build libheif with libde265 and libx265 support (for respectively decoding and encoding of HEVC, i.e. HEIC files), and libaom decoder and encoder (for AV1, i.e. AVIF files), otherwise the plug-in is mostly useless. 15. GObject Introspection requires the following dependencies to be built and installed with introspection as well: babl, cairo, GdkPixbuf, GEGL, GIO, GLib, GObject and GTK. 16. Windows builds can now generate backtrace logs upon a crash. The logs will be available in: %APPDATA%\GIMP\@GIMP_APP_VERSION@\CrashLog\ The feature depends on Dr.MinGW's ExcHndl library: https://github.com/jrfonseca/drmingw 17. Optional step if compiling GIMP from git (unneeded from tarball): you need to initialize submodules with command `git submodule update --init`. 18. Configure GIMP by running `meson _build`. You may want to pass some options to it, see below. 19. Build GIMP by running `ninja -C _build'. 20. Install GIMP by running `ninja -C _build install'. In order to avoid clashes with other versions of GIMP, we install a binary called gimp-@GIMP_APP_VERSION@. By default there's also a link created so that you can type 'gimp' to start gimp-@GIMP_APP_VERSION@. 21. Summary of required packages and what version you need: Package Name Version appstream-glib @APPSTREAM_GLIB_REQUIRED_VERSION@ ATK @ATK_REQUIRED_VERSION@ babl @BABL_REQUIRED_VERSION@ cairo @CAIRO_REQUIRED_VERSION@ Fontconfig @FONTCONFIG_REQUIRED_VERSION@ freetype2 @FREETYPE2_REQUIRED_VERSION@ GDK-PixBuf @GDK_PIXBUF_REQUIRED_VERSION@ GEGL @GEGL_REQUIRED_VERSION@ gexiv2 @GEXIV2_REQUIRED_VERSION@ GIO GLib @GLIB_REQUIRED_VERSION@ glib-networking GTK @GTK_REQUIRED_VERSION@ gvfs (on Linux) HarfBuzz @HARFBUZZ_REQUIRED_VERSION@ libbzip2 libjpeg liblzma @LIBLZMA_REQUIRED_VERSION@ libmypaint @LIBMYPAINT_REQUIRED_VERSION@ libpng @LIBPNG_REQUIRED_VERSION@ libpoppler-glib @POPPLER_REQUIRED_VERSION@ librsvg @RSVG_REQUIRED_VERSION@ libtiff @LIBTIFF_REQUIRED_VERSION@ Little CMS @LCMS_REQUIRED_VERSION@ mypaint-brushes-1.0 pangocairo @PANGO_REQUIRED_VERSION@ poppler-data @POPPLER_DATA_REQUIRED_VERSION@ PyGObject Python @PYTHON3_REQUIRED_VERSION@ zlib 22. Summary of optional packages: Package Name Version Feature cairo-pdf @CAIRO_PDF_REQUIRED_VERSION@ PDF export cfitsio - FITS iso-codes - Language selection ExcHndl - Crash logs on Windows with Dr. MinGW gs - ghostscript libaa - ASCII art libheif @LIBHEIF_REQUIRED_VERSION@ HEIF (HEIC, AVIF) libilbm - Amiga IFF/ILBM libjxl @LIBJXL_REQUIRED_VERSION@ JPEG XL libmng - MNG libwebp @WEBP_REQUIRED_VERSION@ WebP (built with --enable-libwebpmux and --enable-libwebpdemux) libwmf @WMF_REQUIRED_VERSION@ WMF libXcursor - X11 Mouse Cursor libxpm - XPM openexr @OPENEXR_REQUIRED_VERSION@ OpenEXR OpenJPEG @OPENJPEG_REQUIRED_VERSION@ JPEG 2000 qoi - QOI webkit @WEBKITGTK_REQUIRED_VERSION@ Help browser & webpage vala - Vala plug-ins 23. Summary of optional runtime dependencies: darktable >= 1.7, with lua support enabled for raw loading RawTherapee >= 5.2 for raw loading xdg-email for sending emails sendmail for sending emails if --with-sendmail enabled gdb or lldb for our new bug-reporting dialog "gegl:matting-levin" GEGL operation for alternative matting engine GJS for Javascript plug-ins dot for "Show Image Graph" (unstable branches) xdg-desktop-portal implemented for your desktop for various D-Bus API (screenshot, color-picking…) 24. Summary of experimental or unmaintained dependencies: Lua 5.1 (or LuaJIT) and LGI: Lua plug-in example is disabled by default because of stability issues with the Lua binding. Webkit-GTK @WEBKITGTK_REQUIRED_VERSION@: the Help Browser and Webpage plug-ins are disabled for lack of maintenance and issues with Webkit-GTK Generic instructions for configuring and compiling auto-configured packages are included below. Here is an illustration of commands that might be used to build and install GIMP. The actual configuration, compilation and installation output is not shown. % tar xvf gimp-@GIMP_VERSION@.tar.xz # unpack the sources % cd gimp-@GIMP_VERSION@ # change to the toplevel directory % meson setup _build # `configure' step % ninja -C _build # build GIMP % ninja -C _build install # install GIMP The `configure' step examines your system, and adapts GIMP to run on it. The script has many options, some of which are described in the generic instructions included at the end of this file. All of the options can be listed using the command `meson configure' if you successfully configured already, or by reading the file `meson_options.txt`. There are several special options the GIMP configure script recognizes. These are: -Dvector-icons=false This option installs raster icons instead of vector icons. -Drelocatable-bundle=yes This option forces GIMP to search some resources (e.g. MyPaint brushes or libwmf fonts) relatively to the running prefix, rather than using build-time paths. -Dansi=true This option causes stricter ANSI C checking to be performed when compiling with GCC. The default is for strict checking to be disabled. NOTE: This option is intended primarily as a convenience for developers. -Dgimpdir=DIR. This option changes the default directory GIMP uses to search for its configuration files from ~/.config/GIMP/@GIMP_APP_VERSION@ (the directory .config/GIMP/@GIMP_APP_VERSION@ in the user's home directory) to ~/.config/DIR/@GIMP_APP_VERSION@. If DIR is an absolute path, the directory will be changed to DIR. -Dshmem-type=[none|sysv|posix|win32|auto]. This option allows you to specify how image data is transported between the core and plug-ins. Usually the best way to do this is detected automatically. -Daa=disabled The AA plug-in needs libaa and configure checks for its presence. Use -Daa=disabled if you run into problems. -Dxpm=disabled The XPM plug-in needs libxpm and configure checks for its presence. If for some reason you don't want to build the XPM plug-in even though the library is installed, use -Dxpm=disabled to disable it explicitly. -Dmng=disabled The MNG plug-in needs libmng and configure checks for its presence. If for some reason you don't want to build the MNG plug-in even though the library is installed, use -Dmng=disabled to disable it explicitly. -Dwmf=disabled The WMF plug-in needs libwmf2 and configure checks for its presence. Use -Dwmf=disabled if you run into problems. -Dwebkit-unmaintained=true We do not recommend to install the Help browser and Webpage plug-ins anymore. If for some reason you want these anyway, you can force the build with this explicit option. -Dprint=false If for some reason you don't want to build the Print plug-in based on the GtkPrint API, you can build with -Dprint=false. -Dalsa=disabled If you don't want to compile ALSA support into the MIDI input controller module, you can use the -Dalsa=disabled option. -Dlinux-input=disabled If you don't want to compile the Linux Input controller module, you can use the -Dlinux-input=disabled option. -Dgi-docgen=enabled|disabled This option controls whether the libgimp C API references will be created using gi-docgen. -Dg-ir-doc=true This option controls whether the libgimp API references for some binding languages will be created using g-ir-doc-tool and yelp-build. -Denable-multiproc=false This option allows you to disable support for multiple processors. It is enabled by default. -Dwith-sendmail[=PATH] This option is used to tell GIMP to send email through sendmail instead of xdg-email. You can optionally indicate where to find the sendmail command. Otherwise sendmail will simply be searched in your $PATH at runtime. -Denable-default-bin=false Use this option if you don't want to make gimp-@GIMP_APP_VERSION@ the default GIMP installation. Otherwise a link called gimp pointing to the gimp-@GIMP_APP_VERSION@ executable will be installed. -Denable-console-bin=false Use this option if you don't want the gimp-console binary to be built in addition to the standard binary. gimp-console is useful for command-line batch mode or as a server. -Djavascript=disabled If for some reason you don't want to install the JavaScript plug-ins, you can use -Djavascript=false. -Dlua=true Lua binding is experimental because of stability issues. You may test the feature by enabling it. -Dvala-plugins=disabled If for some reason you don't want to install the Vala plug-ins, you can use -Dvala-plugins=disabled. This list is manually maintained. To get an exhaustive listing of options, read `meson_options.txt'. Additionally meson supports a wide range of common built-in options. See documentation: https://mesonbuild.com/Builtin-options.html The `ninja' command builds several things: - A bunch of public libraries in the directories starting with 'libgimp'. - The plug-in programs in the 'plug-ins' directory. - Some modules in the 'modules' subdirectory. - The main GIMP program 'gimp-@GIMP_APP_VERSION@' in `app'. The `ninja install' command installs the GIMP header files associated with the libgimp libraries, the plug-ins, some data files and the GIMP executable. After running `ninja install' and assuming the build process was successful you should be able to run `gimp'. When configure fails ====================== The most important is to read the error output displayed by meson, as it will very likely tell you the exact problem. A detailed log of the meson output is written to the file meson-logs/meson-log.txt. This may help diagnose problems. The configuration step verify that various tools are installed, such as: C and C++ compilers, pkg-config or pkgconf (tools that replaces the old foo-config scripts), and more. Make sure these are installed. Then it will try to search for various libraries, by looking up a `.pc` file (used to get information on installation details). For instance if pkg-config could not find the file 'gtk+-3.0.pc' that gets installed with GTK, verify that the development package of GTK+3 is installed or that you have a version equal or higher than the required version. If you installed a supported version of a dependency but the configure step still cannot find it, you may need to add the location of the .pc file to the environment variable PKG_CONFIG_PATH before running meson setup. When you use custom installation prefixes for dependencies, you will likely need to set more environment variables, such as LD_LIBRARY_PATH or GI_TYPELIB_PATH, either for the configuration to succeed, the build itself or to start GIMP at all. Please check out our building tutorial for more in-depth details: https://developer.gimp.org/core/setup/build/ About optional features ======================= When the configure step succeeds, it will display a summary of which optional features or plug-ins will be installed. There are some GIMP features, in particular for the support of more recent or less used image formats, that need additional third-party libraries installed on your system. You need the related libraries and header files installed for these, otherwise the compiled GIMP will be a minimal version without these features. Once you installed them, run the following command to trigger a reconfiguration: % ninja reconfigure Verify that the optional features you wanted are now shown as `true`, otherwise follow similar advices than above to make sure they are visible to your setup.