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Building Gimp 2.0 on Windows XP?
Anonymouse asks: "Has anyone out there just had the urge to build Gimp 2.0 on Windows instead of using an installer made by a third party, hosted on a free web hosting service? It's probably fine but it makes me nervous, so I figure I should try building it on Windows instead...besides, it could be educational! Does anyone have any instructions/suggestions for building the source on Windows XP using MinGW and MinSYS? Keep in mind I have no experience with *nix, and my meek programing skillz only apply to Perl. Thanks!"
I found this site linked from the main Gimp site. It doesn't look too sketchy to me. Why don't you use that?
If you really want to compile from scratch, do it on Linux first with native Linux programs. When you get the hang of that, move to Windows. I'm all for sink-or-swim type trials, but, in this case, I think you'll sink. Very quickly.
No. I've never had such urges. Seek help.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
Many software shops have dedicated build teams that do nothing more than make sure that the software is rebuilt from source every day. This entails tweaking build scripts, makefiles, and making sure that the proper libraries are available for the compiler and linker.
This is not an easy task, though once set up properly it becomes fairly self-managing.
Since you are coming from Perl where there is nothing to compile, it would probably be best to start by installing Cygwin and gcc and just try compiling a few simple programs first. READ the makefiles. Understanding the makefiles will make understanding the build process much easier.
I have been pwned because my
The GIMP wiki has a full page on building GIMP using MinGW here.
Not something that is worthy of an Ask Slashdot in my opinion, but we're here to help I guess. Also, check out the #gimp channel on irc.gimp.org for some help.
-Tukon
Stating the obvious.
I downgraded to GTK 2.2.4.2 revision C and went back to GIMP 1.25. I'll give GIMP 2.0 another try when GTK+ 2.4.1 is released.
Maybe you ought to try CygWin and therefore compile Gimp for Windows in a Linux-like environment without needing to install an entirely new operating system. I am assuming of course that the ability to build Gimp for Windows comes easily provided you're building in Linux.
I design user interfaces for a free network management application,
Doesn't this belong on an appropriate mailing list or something?
11*43+456^2
People keep saying to start with installing Cygwin. But does Cygwin run everything as root? I am not a windows person but that is what my school claims is stopping them from installing it in the MS labs. If precompiled binaries make you nervous always running as root sounds worse. Is MinGW any better?
I've built Gaim for Windows before, and I think it would be quite similar to building The Gimp 2.0 since they both use a lot of the same software...
The basic idea is to install cygwin, and use make and python and perl and all that other stuff the build process needs, but replace the compilers and libraries in your path with the ones from mingw.
See here for more info:
Windows Development - gaim
When installing or compiling UNIX apps that have been ported to Windows, especially ones using GTK+, all kinds of crazy things end up happening with confused DLLs. Sometimes Gaim tries to use ActiveState's Perl and that breaks something, or tries to use some of Cygwin's libraries. What we need is something like the LSB that governs how UNIX-compatible environments (Cygwin and MinGW mainly) should work on Windows. That would be a big help to folks like me who must use Windows (No, trolls. I can't use Linux. I have reasons. Go away.) but want to have appilcations and environments that are UNIXey.
samrolken
Maybe he's trying to draw attention to the fact that a compiled version of the gimp for windows costs $79.95, see here for more details.
How's that for *free* software?
Uhhhh, you're using WindowsXP.
How did you find this webpage?
What are you doing here?
You're making me very nervous.
Is this a trick?
I have to go now.
But if you feel like building it yourself, be my guest.
From their win32 page:
On the other hand, I just downloaded Gaim 0.76 (because I broke the old version when I upgraded GTK for GIMP 2.0)... and the tray icon is working fine, no changes on my part at all.
Hmm. Either way, you should consider another shot.
There are only 10 types of people: those who understand decimal, those who don't, and, uh, 8 other types I forget.
Good thing there's also a free-as-in-beer version. You can do that sort of thing with free-as-in-speech programs. You can also try to make a profit if you like.
You're *free* to do whatever you like. Isn't that great?
Random and weird software I've written.
IMO it would be a lot more challenging to try and build a native win32 binary. Yes, this means using the dreaded MFC, though I myself would prefer the way cleaner implementation of the ATL (or even the largely undocumented WTL).
.NET platform would be even more interesting... imagine having a complete managed open source application to run on Longhorn way before anyone else has one...
Of course building a Gimp 2 in managed code on the
And why don't you just go to the GIMP homepage, subscribe to the GIMP mailing list and ask the developers ?
... all in the correct order and with the right options (like Xft support, and if you want to use your graphic tablet you need XInput... at least on Linux/UNIX, YMMV on Windows of course)).
Seriously, if you're so lazy that you're using Ask Slashdot instead of their mailing list you should stick with the installer ! Especially since compiling GIMP 2.0 is diving into dependency hell (you'll need to compile about half a dozen libraries first, ATK, glib, GTK+,