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GIMP Dropped From Ubuntu 10.04
kai_hiwatari writes "It looks like the Ubuntu developers consider GIMP to be too powerful for a normal desktop user. They are removing it from the upcoming Ubuntu 10.04. Among the reasons cited are that the UI is too complex, it takes up room on the disc, and 'desktop users just want to edit photos and they can do that in F-Spot.''"
Too powerful for normal users, too limited for power users.
Image editing is still way behind Windows and Mac OSX, where you have Photoshop for power users and also Paint Shop Pro for less power users, but who still like a full image editing suite.
Let's be clear - it's not removed from Ubuntu, it's removed from the default install.
It's still a click away in the package manager.
Sounds sensible to me. I'd imagine the vast majority of Ubuntu users are unlikely to use the gimp.
Not really a problem, right?
People who like to play with graphics already know the Gimp... Just click and install.
Alas poor Wilber, we hardly knew ye...
Everyone photoshops now a days.
I have seen many shops in my time
I can tell by the pixels.
This should more properly say "GIMP dropped from Default Ubuntu 10.04"
If GIMP were actually being dropped(i.e. the devs said "fuck it, it isn't worth packaging for our repos, users who care can get it from a third party repo or build it from source.") that would be news, and bad news for GIMP. As it is, though, Ubuntu makes it trivial to find and install programs that are in the default repositories.
A lot of us have been saying that UI is godawful for a LONG time, only to be shouted down by the fanboys. Now it looks like the developers at Canonical agree. And considering that one of their big goals was to make a user-friendly Linux distro, with a halfway decent GUI, I can understand why they would appreciate something that's obvious to anyone who isn't wearing blinders.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
why do the developers of gimp refuse to change the name? i have used gimp, i have it installed on windows, and i really like it. i think that given it is free software, it goes far and beyond what one would expect of a free program.
but surely it could benefit from a name change...what would be the downside of a name change? would some developer's egos be bruised that they bowed to outside pressure?
i dont mean to troll, but once the name changes
I have no issue with this. Gimp is more than most people need anyhow and maybe it will be a good kick in the nads to get the Gimp guys to clean it up a little more.
Photoshop is a lot more intuitive than Gimp is. I always feel like I have to jump through hoops to do the same thing in Gimp as I do in Photoshop.
No need to waste space on the default install when so few of people use it
Nonsense. it's like removing Photoshop from the install of Windows.
Oh, wait......
Did Fox News publish this story? Why the hype? `sudo apt-get install gimp*`
I'll just grab GIMP using apt.
But if it's in "universe", Canonical won't sell tech support, and it'll probably lag behind in updates.
It's about as close to Photoshop as you're going to get in a free application
The more honest comparison is to Photoshop Elements, but otherwise, your point is valid.
One of the first things I hear about, next to "Can I sync my iPod" is "Can I run photoshops to edit my pics?" To the average person who has figured out how to crop in Photoshop and paste to things together with layers, GIMP is a dream. Complex, sure, but so is Photoshop. I understand the decision and actually kind of agree with it, but I think saying because it's too confusing for users is a little undermining their target audience of savvy 20 somethings who pirate Photoshop to make LOLcats.
It's still a click away in the package manager.
One click and five hours of waiting for people stuck in a country that doesn't recognize a "right to broadband". And is GIMP still in main (stuff for which Canonical sells support), or has it been moved to universe (free software ported to Ubuntu for which Canonical does not sell support)?
On Windows there's also my personal favorite, Paint.NET. It does WAY more than Paint, it's fast, and it's free. It ain't Photoshop, but it's all I need.
I looked in the repository for kubuntu 9.10 and didn't find anything with that name. What is it and where is it?
"He's lost in a 'floyd hole"
Zed: Bring out the Gimp.
Maynard: Gimp's not installed.
Zed: Well, I guess you're gonna have to go apt-get install him now, won't you?
Ok, so they removed GIMP. Maybe not so bad... assuming their out-of-the-install "replacement" was decent. But come on, F-Spot? What the f***? Seriously? I don't like so-called "media libraries" that ask you for a specific "working directory" and mention copying all your crap over to it *right on the first screen*. I guess the best thing about this is that it's only a _sudo apt-get install gimp_ away. Couldn't their replacement at least be a proper image EDITOR, not all-in-one manager? No way in hell I'm touching F-Spot, that's for sure.
why do the developers of gimp refuse to change the name?
"GNU Image Manipulation Program" is a program published by the GNU project that manipulates images. As a descriptive name, it's no worse than "Microsoft Internet Explorer".
And then Canonical will start selling laptops pre-loaded with Ubuntu that have no keyboard, just a single giant button.
http://www.theonion.com/content/video/apple_introduces_revolutionary
I may be just me but as a casual user, I'm glad someone else realises this.
I use Irfanview for conversion, resizing, cropping and other basics (yes, even on Linux - sorry but it runs perfect on WINE and does 90% of what I need to do to get photos from digital media or my scanner, get them ready for going across the internet, onto various accounts, to relatives, etc. in a decent time). I use Paint Shop Pro, or the virtually identical but cheaper ancient-version-of-Serif-Photoplus that I still have, for anything more "fancy". With those I've done everything from creating panaromic photo images to creating individual bits of clipart, to doing curves, borders and backgrounds for websites and all sorts.
But GIMP? Hell, I don't even know where to start whenever I load it. I've installed it dozens of times thinking I must be missing something that makes it easier to use but it's just not worth my time. The photoshop-modifications made it a million times simpler in a matter of seconds, why they aren't the default I can't fathom.
Simple fact is, I specify software for schools. If they demand a free bit of software, we use Irfanview for scanning, conversion, cropping etc. and maybe Artweaver for anything that needs to be created. GIMP has never got past the "WTF is that" stage of its initial screens.
The age of digital photography does see plenty of people composing their own images. These folk, however, will google around and emerge *oops* apt-get install gimp.
!
Hmm, as an avid KDE user I (logically) first misread the article's head as Gnome dropped. ;)
Now that would improve the user experience.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
It's too bad, really. I like GIMP because it shows users that unlike Windows, which comes with a bunch of widget apps at best, that Ubuntu comes with serious productivity software, equivalents of which on Windows can cost hundreds or thousands of dollars.
I guess I can see where they're coming from. I do agree that double-clicking on a picture shouldn't launch a full-fledged photo editor like GIMP, but I liked that it was easily accessible without having to do anything extra. Couldn't the same argument be made of OpenOffice.org? Are they going to replace it anytime soon with a scaled-down Wordpad equivalent? What about Compiz? Those also take up space, aren't needed for basic computer use, and could be installed with trivial effort.
Actually, for most users, I'd suggest GIMP on Windows, or for lighter-duty work, Paint.NET. I gave up on Paint Shop Pro after Jasc sold out to Corel. It's gotten more expensive and now they're playing games I hate that other mainstream commercial software is. (There's now a more expensive "Paint Shop Pro Ultimate" edition...). Too bad, too. Years ago, Paint Shop Pro was one of the first shareware programs I ever bought.
I guess I can stop complaining that fedora 12 does not include pidgin, in favour of some idiot client with no file transfer and no encryption.
I have kind of seen this coming. We all know that the current (Stable) UI is bad, not just the multiple windows part of it. I haven't seen an update to the GIMP, stable or unstable, for more than three months now. There doesn't seem to be the active community around GIMP that I was at least under the impression existed before. Learn from Blender, GIMP devs: Don't leave your site purely informational, listen to the community about the UI, build a community and promote it on your site and you are sure to stay in more distributions and attract more developers.
fixed.
boycott slashdot February 10th - 17th check out: altSlashdot.org
I feel as confused in Photoshop as many Slashdot commenters seem to be in GIMP. This is likely because I learned to do image editing / design tasks on GIMP, not on Photoshop. Even the last round of GIMP UI changes, which many applauded, left me more confused than I used to be when using GIMP. The thought that GIMP is adopting a "single window mode" really depresses me. :-(
Drop that bloated OpenOffice before considering dumping programs that actually do what they are supposed to.. Abiword is quite enough for the average user, that probably almost never starts presenter or that lousy excel-wannabe thingy. Now how's that for a stripdown of crap ey?
I'm not trolling. It's probably true that most ubuntu users are incapable of using the GIMP, or any application more complex than a simple (probably unresizable) window with just a File menu and File->Quit option.
GIMP is a great application, but not for gknobs.
As such, in a distro designed for gnobs, it is unsurprising to see it go the same way as most other essential linux tools (eg konqueror and other assorted kde 3.x apps).
So we should therefore encourage Apple Software Solutions, the Canadian Conservative–Reform Alliance Party, Sun Hardware Interface Technologies... ? Somehow I think you just fell down a slippery slope of stupid.
Do consider the other meanings, including a fairly offensive pejorative for someone with a disability. Although if you subscribe to the "Engineers would call 'Kentucky Fried Chicken' 'Warm Dead Bird'" school of thinking, I suppose it's not that absurd.
Film at 11 ... sheesh.
It's not that Gimp is too powerful for the normal desktop user, it's the fact that Gimp's user interface is way, way too confusing for anyone but those who REALLY want to learn it. I've been using Adobe and Corel paint/photoediting programs for 15 years now and, let me tell you, that knowledge does not necessarily translate to Gimp. It's like starting from scratch, and not in the "about time someone rebuilt this from the ground up" kind of way, more of the "what the hell were they thinking?" kinda way. Then again, it's open source. It's powerful software created by people who'd rather be using a command line anyway...
Wise men say, "Forgiveness is divine, but never pay full price for late pizza."
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Canonical has likely been collecting data on what their users are actually using. They notice that Gimp is not used much. It takes a lot of valuable real estate on the default CD. Hence, it had to go.
Hopefully this is a wakeup call to the Gimp developers to finally get the UI updated. Yes, I know that they've been working on it for the last year. The thing is, people have been complaining about it for many years and just got the scorn of the developers.
Serves. Them. Right.
Help! I'm a slashdot refugee.
FSpot is tied to Mono. Mono is tied to Microsoft. Dropping GIMP is a braindead idea. Having watched them shoot themselves in the feet with several releases (bugs) this is it for me. So ends my interest in Ubuntu.
I remove F-Spot, which I neither like nor use. Actually I nearly despise it due to the hard-coded directory name stupidity introduced a couple of Ubuntu versions ago (every volume with a /photos directory was deemed to be from a digital camera, even if it was a 1TB internal fixed disk). The resulting moronic behavior of the file browser was really Ubuntu's fault, but F-Spot carries the stigma.
Our raw photo processing is done with Bibble Pro and Noise Ninja, both of which sell native Linux versions. GIMP is a keeper for image editing, however, and gets quite a lot of use. Especially by my teenage daughter, who became a GIMP whiz as a pre-teen.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
You are trying to install a Gnome application in a KDE-based distribution, so of course it has to install half the Gnome libraries, since they aren't on the system already. If you tried to install Krita in a Gnome-based distribution, you would get just as many KDE dependencies.
F-Spot? WTF is that? Mono again?
There are two perfectly usable image viewers -- GQview for Gnome and Gwenview for KDE. They do one thing well -- displaying a directory full of images in a user-friendly way. For actual photo editing Gimp pretty much covers everything a casual user will want to do, so if they don't want to include it, they can add a stub to GQview editing menu to install Gimp before editing a file.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
One of the ways of introducing people to alternative software is to install it and have in sitting there on the menu. By removing the GIMP, they're just encouraging people to think that linux is "not ready for serious users."
For people who are used to working with photoshop, the GIMP is different - hence cumbersome. Same as for people used to MS-Office, OpenOffice is "too different", or who are used to "teh InnerNet == IE", firefox was too cumbersome.
People got over it with firefox, they're getting over it with oo, and given time, those who are sufficiently motivated to explore will get over it with the gimp.
Between the fugly colour schemes, the stupid naming schemes, the artificial restrictions on root (hey - it's MY computer, not yours), not including the toolchain for building the system by default - even on xubuntu, etc., I'm glad I stuck with opensuse.
If they want it to be so dumbed down, why don't they just pull a lindows/linspire?
Yes, it's a flame, but ubuntu sucks for development. And now it's going to suck for users who want a bit more than average / mediocre.
And perhaps you don't know that the upcoming GIMP 2.8 will feature a "single window mode". I tested it by compiling from the git repository: it still has a LOT of rough edges (that's unreleased software for you) but it's better than the present UI in my opinion.
Even if it's just removed from the live CD, I find this move from Canonical to be borderline on stupid.
I am very excited about the "single window mode" feature, but won't this only be a small step in the right direction? What about all the awful right click menu system with sub-sub-menus? That really need a thorough overhaul too.
Maybe it's because I haven't used it in a while, or maybe I got used to Gimp. But I've always found Photoshop confusing as all hell. Mostly because whenever I opened it, I was stunned by the sheer number of choices available, it was almost too much. Gimp's layout is interesting, but I haven't found it to be nearly as difficult as most people claim. Honestly, I think a lot of the nay-sayers are just really used to Photoshop, and dislike anything that isn't like what they know (see: IE users).
Whilst on the subject of names, i always wondered what that minge tty thing was
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=minge (if you're from outside the UK)
Please read my Canon EOS tech blog at http://www.everyothershot.com
Here's why: 1. This means Canonical developers care for the usability & simplicity of Ubuntu. 2. It also means that GIMP is getting more advanced. 3. There is really no downside to this because GIMP can still be install in seconds if you want it.
I look forward to the day when Canonical finally get rid of that pesky Linux thing from their default install. I mean all it does is confuse people who can't run their walmart bought software on it. Die Ubuntu die.
A distribution for those who can't find their ass with both hands.
IMHO F-Spot is absolutely garbage, and not because it's written in C# and requires mono libraries. It's absolute garbage because last I tried it (in 9.04) it would not even think of the option of renaming files on an import if there was a filename conflict between what's on your card/import source and what's already in your album. How often do cameras name pictures the same thing after you've reformatted the card? Or how often do you use different cameras which use the same naming conventions? The lackluster features in f-spot on top of it's inability to manage your tags easily make it garbage. It also has severe instability. If you ask me, digikam serves a much better purpose than F-spot ever did. If they can sacrifice the 100 or so MB for the QT libraries and throw digikam on there, they ought to (and ditch mono+f-spot while they're at it). For anything that digikam cannot do, I use GIMP on my Ubuntu machines.
I rarely use GIMP, since my only system with Linux (Ubuntu specifically) is my Dell Mini 9. GIMP's interface is too big for the puny resolution on there anyway, so I pretty much never use it.
Still, it's always a shame when a tradition like this is broken up, even if it is done for good reasons.
Living With a Nerd
This reminds me of SUN's incredibly silly decision to remove their C compiler from SunOS when they shipped Solaris, so that one had to jump through hoops just to find a suitable gcc binary because you couldn't bootstrap gcc without a compiler. Sure, GIMP is not so crucial, but still...
cpghost at Cordula's Web.
I've found myself in a position more than once trying to explain that GIMP is a powerful image editor. But management types don't listen after I tell them the name of the software. "GIMP"'s name is the single biggest barrier to adoption of what is otherwise a fantastic image editing software. I've been using it for years to produce my (admittedly not at the Disney level) graphics - see farmdirectory.org for my latest project that includes (among a ton of other OSS) GIMP's handy work.
The latest version of Gimp had some really nice enhancements to the UI. I use GIMP almost every day. Every time I spin up the GIMP process, though, I lament the name.
What version of GIMP are you using, something from like 1998?
1) Make selection
2) Open "Image" menu in main menubar
3) Click "Crop to Selection"
You're done. That seems pretty easy and straight forward to me, and sounds almost identical to what you described. It's the way I've been cropping images for as long as I can remember in GIMP. I'm sure there's *always* a harder way you can find to do something, but that doesn't mean it's the way you are intended to.
As long as I can still do "sudo apt-get install gimp", who cares?
Gimp ui suck ass but the engine is quite good (if you dont need pantone separation)
so try http://www.gimpshop.com/
I agree with the need to fix the UI and change the name, but GIMP should be in a default install. Power users shouldn't have to wait for an installation or a download, just make the file extension association default to a simpler program for novice users.
Oh, cry me a river.
Intelligent people who want to "solve the problem themselves" will do so by clicking on the install package for GIMP and be right where they'd have been if this hadn't been done. You're the one complaining like a spoiled child, which means presumably you're affiliated with the GIMP project. Meanwhile, the majority of Ubuntu users who don't care either way will go on about their business, noting that there are several MB of tools they actually find useful in the default install where GIMP had previously displaced them.
Power and efficiency do not require a craptastic user interface. That argument only comes from those who can't do UI design and don't want to admit it's a limitation in their skillset.
Your movie quotes apply to how we present ourselves, not how we present the things we make. The makers of Ubuntu are making it for users; they want it to be used, so they care what the users think - even the ones you think are idiots for not agreeing with your views on what is good software.
Meanwhile, you sound awfully bitter that GIMP isn't loved enough to keep its precious spot on the Ubuntu default install CD.
But you know what, have it your way. If you want to believe that Ubuntu is the project that will suffer as a result of caring about user experience, rather than seeing that GIMP is at this moment suffering for failing to do so, go ahead. Too bad I won't get to hear your excuses when we see this in hindsight a few years from now.
I do not see anything wrong with it. I install ubuntu every now and then, but never use GIMP. If I really need it, I will just apt it. Nothing wrong or hard about this.
Many people are trying to install programs that are much much harder compared to GIMP. And honestly, just because GIMP is removed from the install CD,
do you really think GTK/GTK+ will slow down or cancel? That is crazy talk.
You are looking for rip-offs.
An alternative to anything will not ape mindlessly the thing it is intending to supplant, people developing similar tools arrive to different conclussions, specially when it comes to usability.
Usability is certainly related to familiarity (most people that say something is not "user friendly" or "intuitive" what they really mean is that they are used to a piece of software and that they will never learn anything else because they have invested so much on the previous tool.
The GIMP certainly is no drop in replacement for Photoshop, but deriding it because it isn't is childish in extreme.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Sure, the Gimp is nice if you can't afford Photoshop. But I think of myself as someone who does a bit more than your average user when it comes to designing and especially modification of photo's. The Gimp has it's own right to be alive, but they should have copied CS interface. Come on, who of you actually can draw such a simple thing as a straight line in the Gimp? I can, after I googled it... Once you know it, it's simple. But it isn't simple to get to know. Not at all. That's what killing Gimp. Sure you can have that PS gui that has been created for Gimp 1.3 but still it doesn't forfill the need for basic users who want an icon to draw straight lines and it sure as hell can't compete with CS on any level. *But you can write your own perl scripts for it* - I'm an artist, I pay people who write decent plugins for me. The best of those are within Photoshop. Fact. So I applaud this. The people who need the possibilities of The Gimp will just apt-get it and the people who don't need will never ever mis it. Smart move, keeping in mind what Ubuntu stands for.
Everybody knows what it is, what would be the reason to change the name? (I don't like it is not a reason).
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Yeah I too got a bit "pissy" when I discovered that XEmacs was not included in the Red Hat releases by default anymore... 10 years ago or something close to that.... but with yum/apt et.al. its easy to get... I have over 1 GB of packages that aren't in the default Fedora install... big deal... booohooo... its so simple that I've completely forgot about what a default install is and I don't care.
A big non-story but that is my side of the view. YMMV.
GIMP Is Not Photoshop.
oh wait..
First time I read this...
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Seriously... this is not a big issue, does anyone think that you won't just be able to do 'apt-get install gimp' if you want it?
(And in the case of the GIMP, if you don't know anything about it, chances are you are going to be quite confused by the interface, but if you know about it and how to use it, you probably know enough to be able to apt-get it).
May be ok for the programmer that needs a few buttons for his UI, even for the average user that needs to remove somebody from the family album. I am sure python-fu is great (we need more of that). But seriously, for how many complex scripting real use cases you think this would be the right tool?
For professional graphic editing GIMP is a massive PITA, the UI is counter intuitive, to say the least. They got it all too wrong from the very beginning. I'm not blaming GIMP developers completely, Adobe patents are something to dodge. But I'm sure they had better options. Do you really needed to redefine all possible shortcuts? Come on! they reinvented the wheel and they did it WRONG.
As it is now, for me GIMP is MS-Paint on steroids. I have more than 20 years in graphic design, I am also programmer and a Linux user for more than 5 years.
GIMP is a mistake. So was PHP and most software (be it open source or not) that becomes standard for reasons unrelated to its intrinsic quality.
You like GIMP? good for you, go and install it, is ubiquitous in the repositories. I did that many times now and I still wish some day I don't *have* to do it anymore to have good, free image editing on Linux.
It is just an excuse for Ubuntu to make it MANDATORY you have MONO installed because f-spot DEPENDS on it.
My karma is not a Chameleon.
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This is my message to F-Spot developers: do some fucking usability tests, and then get an actual UI designer and have him address the issues. Or if you can't, just rip off the iPhoto UI wholesale. "Real" users get lost in the current F-Spot within 15 seconds. Its UI for _browsing_ the pictures sucks, it's import functionality is confusing, and its editing is both confusing and inadequate. Yes, I know the proverb about the teeth of the gift horse, but if we're picking based on merit here, let's recognize that currently there's no good choice.
we all know that will happen someday ... :)
I haven't figured what all the fuss over Ubuntu is all about anyway. I have a collection of fairly plain-vanilla systems at home that use run-of-the-mill motherboards (from the likes of Gigabyte and Asus) and, on some of them, I haven't been able to get Ubuntu's CDs to even boot. And in those system that will boot the Ubuntu CD the hardware detection fails and nothing will install. Funny that I don't have this problem with Red Hat, SuSE, or even Solaris.
So if Ubuntu wishes to be another Outer Limits type operating system, a la Apple, ("We control the vertical. We control the horizontal"), let 'em. The GIMP takes up space on the CD? What else do they want that CD space for? Crimeny! They're making that one up, right?
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
http://linux.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1450066&cid=30157016
The big deal is this!
- F-Spot is based on mono
- GIMP is not
This may be an indirect hint from Canonical to the GIMP devs that their package needs a lot of work still.
It just might work.
Its worth noting that gimp will still be part of the default install for Ubuntu Studio. Should you require Gimp on a default install of some kind.
GIMP was top of the line back when Photoshop 6 was the norm, but things have changed. GIMP is so far behind the curve in terms of usability, interface, and features it's not even funny. Even if it is 'technically' more powerful (it's not) it suffers from the same hellish interface problems that Blender does. Any gems hidden in this program are buried under layers of trash and a terribly unintuitive interface. (Don't start in about how I'm just polishing Adobe's knob, either. At least not until GIMP can be opened in a single window without clogging my taskbar with useless shit.)
The Open Source community would be much better served by either renovating GIMP or finding a new flagship graphic editing program to get behind. Better yet, maybe the FLOSS folk should get a clue and realize that how the user interacts with the program is kind of important instead of using benchmark dickwaving and the fact that it's Open Source to justify bad design decisions. Until something is done about GIMP's piss-poor interface, its name will remain oddly appropriate.
Check the Experiences & Testimonials forum, and you will see that desktop users primarily care about two things:
1) that Ubuntu works perfectly with their hardware,
2) that they don't have to use the command line.
If a user's going to complain about GIMP, they're going to complain that it doesn't have the plugins and features Photoshop does. Not that oh noes it's too complicated.
Looks like the distribution of my next clean install is Debian.
I want to play Free Market with a drowning Libertarian.
The Gimp is dead! Long live The Gimp!
I've no issue with this. Since it's still in the main repo I can just install it when I install the other apps that I use that don't come default with Ubuntu, no big deal. The OS package, even for basic users, should be minimal. Give me system that works out of box with a clean easy to understand GUI (or other interface), give me a browser to get to the inter-tubes, and give me a way to get supported software. I can take it from there.
After being a long time user of Ubuntu, I got so unhappy with the latest Ubuntu release that I dropped it alltogether. These are the reasons: - issues with DVD playback - issues with sound - issues with video and flashplayers - issues with network connectivity over wireless A lot of these things can probably be contributed to the 64 bit version I tried to use when the new release was available in October, but the interesting part is that I had none of these problems in the previous release. I've had no good solutions to the problems using the support forums, so I dropped Ubunto and installed Windows7 instead. That installation did no go smoothly either, but after 1 hour with a very nice Microsoft technician the 64 bit version of Windows7 works really great, and I can't believe that it even runs faster than Ubuntu and not issues at all. It just works. I really love the "free" Ubuntu, and I have been a Linux user for a long time and a Unix user since 1988. So it was not an easy decision to go over the fence and use Windows7, but I can't use the latest Ubuntu release for the stuff I would like to use it for at home.
Saying that apt-get is too complicated for the average user, devs say that the next version of Ubuntu will use MSI running with WINE..
I used The Gimp to whip up a new desktop wallpaper recently. My copy of Photoshop had expired, and I didn't know what else to do.
I was pleasantly surprised; the package is still a little bare compared with Photoshop, but it's come a very long way, and was fully capable of doing everything I wanted.
As graphics packages, I view the differences between the Gimp and Photoshop, as being analogous to the differences between vim and Emacs, with vim being analogous with the Gimp in this case.
Sure, Photoshop has a little more stuff, but truthfully, you don't always want everything but the kitchen sink. Sometimes you just want to do something quick, and The Gimp has most of the filters you'll generally need, anyway. In that sense it adheres well with the UNIX design philosophy; it's the 90% solution. For the other 10%, I'll find another solution, which for me probably won't involve Photoshop, because the amount of FOSS I have access to now, means I'm a lot less willing to pirate software than I used to be. If we want companies to abide by our licenses, we need to abide by theirs.
If Ubuntu is rejecting the Gimp, that shouldn't upset anyone in the slightest. Personally, I rejected Ubuntu six months ago, and haven't looked back. It is an over-engineered, bloated, brittle obscenity of a distribution, which is designed to pander to the voluntarily intellectually disabled, lowest common denominator.
Get Arch, FreeBSD, or (*gasp*) Windows, and leave Ubuntu in the cybernetic rubbish bin where it belongs. Trust me; you'll be glad you did.
I've never used it, but wouldn't it be possible to have a "gimp lite" for more casual users? Like Firefox spun off from Netscape communicator suite? Just the basics, then add on what you want later? Or something like a check box, as we see in a number of other applications, pick one, beginner, intermediate, advanced/all the features.
F-Spot is likely to be seen as a very BAD replacement, seeing as it's a Mono application. So it will be one more Mono-based app becoming the *default* (F-Spot was already being installed, but wasn't the only image app previously).
If the other times this has been brought up here are any indication, the Flossies don't want to imitate Photoshop.
Yeah. That's right. They don't want to imitate Photoshop, and they'll come up with a million bullshit reasons for that, too. It's too 'corporate', it's unoriginal, it'd be just as intimidating for users, it'd use more precious system resources, blah-blah-blah. The minute that you bring this up around a bunch of hardcore OSS (Open Source Sheeple) they'll immediately launch into tirades defending GIMP's inexcusable weaknesses on those grounds, probably while insulting your intelligence and claiming that you're some kind of paid plant.
Paid to bother them. Yeah.
The minute that anyone here says, "The interface is fine as it is, if you can't understand it you probably don't get Photoshop either," they instantly lose all of their credentials as a computer user, a software critic, and a human being with functioning eyes. Nobody cares if it's not original, least of all your users. Extremely few people will care if decrypting the GUI will make it eat up a couple more megabytes of RAM. (Though it is a marvelously light program, I'll give it that.) Anyone who has used any piece of commercial graphic editing software over the past fifteen years will thank you for making it more Photoshop-like, and so will new users that GIMP is just bound to terrify as it is. Until someone else comes up with an even better interface (preferably one that doesn't require like five windows to be open, including a random command line window that shuts down the whole program when closed) the 'Photoshop' style interface will remain the best option, as well as what is expected.
The OSS crowd, forever resistant to external forces of change and well-informed criticism, will likely never make those modifications the standard.
I can't say that I approve of an application that along with Tomboy alone supposedly justify the additional bloat of libmono, which none of the other standard desktop apps use. That doesn't make sense for leanness and reuse.
They should look at what Yorba is doing with Shotwell: http://yorba.org/
Looks like I'll be dropping Ubuntu...
The dumbing down started in earnest with 9.10 Karmic Koala.
Indeed they are rigth on one point: gimp has a complex GUI for basic photo editing. The proper way is to go like blender, split the engine and the GUI. But I thougth GEGL was that engine, then it's a matter to have basic photo edition done with this engine. As far as I'm concern, people around me prefer gthumb by far, it is more usuable, more stable, damn faster, damn leaner etc... Maybe 10.04 is also the time to default to gthumb.
I actually don't understand what everyone's gripe is with the Gimp... At least it includes all the tools in the toolbox. Simple camera perspective correction in Gimp: Perspective tool in Toolbox, click, drag. Simple camera perspective correction in Photoshop: looking all over those vaguely-named menus and sub-menus for the perspective tool. Found in Edit --> Some unrelated sub-menu. Click, drag - d'oh! The, "Perspective" tool is actually broken and doesn't do anything like what you want it to. Instead, you have to go to Edit --> Some unrelated sub-menu --> DISTORT, which behaves nearly-identically to the perspective tool except it isn't broken and doesn't suck.
Photoshop's had me in tears hundreds of times... and it's supposed to be a benchmark for the Gimp? I bloody well hope not!
So... you do still have to use the latex suit and mask while using Ubuntu or not? I find it the whole outfit a little sweaty.
First of all, did I say that GIMP is going to die? *looks at OP...* No, I don't think so. What I said was:
(Emphasis mine-- er, not present in original quote.) I know how easy it is to install GIMP. Being a Windows user of GIMP as well as a Linux user, it's not like I've never had to jump through even more hoops to install it. I'm not lamenting the fact that GIMP is going away, because it's not. What I'm lamenting is that one of the things I do to convince people that Linux is cool is that I fire up a plain, base installation. I pull up OpenOffice.org and show them what they get out of the box versus what they get with Windows (i.e. Wordpad). I fire up GIMP and show them what they get out of the box versus what they get with Windows (i.e. Paint).
It's a lot less sexy to say, "Go to Applications, now to Ubuntu Software Center, now click on Graphics, scroll down to GIMP Image Editor--oh wait, you passed it. Yeah, ignore all that other stuff for now. Okay, click on it. Yeah, click the arrow over there. Now scroll down and click 'Install.' Now click in that box and type your password..."
Ubuntu has always been user-friendly, but let's not mistake that for being targeted at grandmas who want to send an e-mail and browse the web occasionally. It's always been targeted at power users. Do you think that more people use Terminal Server Client than GIMP? Or Evolution? (Personally, I use Gmail's web client, and these days, I'd be willing to be that more people use web clients than local mail software.) Or for that matter, Tali, Robots, Tetravex, and SameGnome? How often do you think Grandma fires up her Remote Desktop Viewer, or creates a Presentation slideshow for the family budget meeting?
I'm not saying throw every package into the default install. But where do you draw the line? Average users aren't going to use 90% of the features built into OpenOffice.org. Why not put in a scaled-down easier-to-use word processor and maybe a basic spreadsheet instead, one that would take up a lot less space and be geared towards the features that average users do use? It seems disingenuous to me to remove GIMP because it's a power user app, but leave all the other stuff that people use even way less.
As you can tell, I personally consider a decent image editor to be a basic "power user" kind of application. Personally, I wish they also included Audacity, OpenOffice.org Database, and maybe a decent video editing software package. After all, it's just as trivial a task to remove the software as it is to install it if you don't want it, and I imaging that your typical Ubuntu user installs and uses those applications way more than something like Remote Desktop Viewer.
One question I don't see addressed is what--if anything--they intend to replace it with. I mean, even Windows has Paint in case you're desperate to edit a few pixels here and there. Will there not even be a scaled-down more user-friendly image editor? Are F-Spot and Eye of Gnome really intended to be the Linux equivalent of Paint, or have they decided that imaging editing is too complicated, period?
GIMP takes me 12 times as long to get ANYTHING done with. I'm certainly not a power user in photoshop, but simple little things take me a lot longer because of just how different GIMP seems to work. One of these days I'll get around to installing photoshop in WINE and then I can disregard GIMP totally.
why do the developers of gimp refuse to change the name?
It's a small blessing that no user environment in Linux begins with the letter "F."
Because we all know what the geek would make of that.
Instead of delivering a plausible - marketable - competitor for Illustrator he would - almost certainly - unleash a FART.
Names matter. First impressions always matter.
They shape how your projects are perceived. They shape how you are perceived.
It would still be faster to download it, Canonical says delivery takes 5-6 wks
I wasn't talking about buying directly from Canonical. In another comment I mentioned an online store that ships within a week. Besides, it's not fun to tie up your phone line for 5 to 6 weeks.
The Windows GIMP installer is 16MB if that takes 5 hours to download
Add another 24 MB for the help file in one language, and you're up to 40 MB (2.5 hours). Further add throttling to 2 KB/s to allow e-mail and images-turned-off web browsing to be less horrible, and we're up to 5 hours again.
...but I though Gimp 2.8 was going to have a unified interface!
Same place Photoshop is left in. Except instead of being too limited unless you buy lots more plugins (after the base cost which is astronomical) like Photoshop, it's too limited unless you write your own plugin or find someone who has done what you're looking for.
I don't see this as a problem, more like a step in the right direction.
In some ways Ubuntu suffers from some application bloat. I question why Tom Boy Notes, F-Spot, Open Office and a host of others are even included. With the app repository it becomes very simple to get these if you really need them anyway.
In the 3.x days of windows you did not get a Word Processor, internet browser, Office Suite in the base product. You got to choose which one you wanted. It would be great to see Ubuntu move in the direction of choice instead of pushing apps on a user.
It is worse, because it's an acronym.
Which "it"? When you pronounce the initials "IE", you get "Aieee!" which is the sound of a web developer trying to make a site work around IE 6's 12% support for JavaScript.
I can see the rationale for not including professional photo editing - after all, professional sound editing in the form of Audacity is not in the core suite either.
However, the idea that F-Spot is useful for anything is just ludicrous. Like Gnome-XChat and Empathy, it has only one bug: Whenever I open it, it sucks. Even Google's closed-source, shoddily-ported Windows application Picasa is better in performance and UI.
Along with the 9.10 replacement of Pidgin with Empathy, Ubuntu is showing a worrying trend of picking inferior default software.
Seriously, if in doubt, let someone else name your programs.
I render/paint in Photoshop and Painter, and that is where GIMP really fails. The brush system is absolutely horrid, with half of the controls under the toolbox and the other half on the brush palette.
Not to mention the silly UI takes up a large portion of my 24" monitor and is useless on my laptop. The toolbox is HUGE and leaves little space for the actual workspace.
People love to talk about which OS/dist is more "usable", which one people unfamiliar with the more visceral workings of computers and software can deal with.
The painful fact is, and it still seems much overlooked... Computers are a bitch to use. They are extremely complicated things. They take more practice to become affluently capable with than anything.
Cars? Sure, you have to know a thing or two to fix them (which is still generally less convoluted than computers), but if you want to drive a car you just have to turn the key until the damn thing starts. It's easy to tell when it's not working, and there's not much of a gradient between "Working Fine" and "Fucked".
Cooking... there's a lot of science to cooking, there's a lot of talent involved in making things look or taste good, but if you want to make that meat tender and nutritious you just got to heat it up.
Politics? It's all art.
Music? It's not hard to make a sound and only takes a bit of practice to make something sound alright.
Writing? Reading? Just an extension of something already inherent to us.
Files and directories and GUIs and upgrades and inputs and outputs and interrupts and standards and buses and and and... it's all a big fucking mess and it's hard to keep up with.
Regardless of the arguments, it's the truth that all the big contenders have made incredible strides and thanks to those proprietary bastards, open source pragmatists and free software zealots there's still much progress that, collectively, we will be able to make.
And GIMP sucks. I use it all the time and it still drives me batshit.
"Most people, I think, don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?"
Looks to me like they replaced a C language application that uses GTK+ with some patent encumbered crap that uses Mono.
There have been alegations that the Mono supporters have inflltrated Canonical and are censoring the anti-Mono contingent and are busy supplanting anybody who disagrees with some Microsoft shills.
JMHO
I love The Gimp. I don't like the direction of Ubuntu, using crappy mono apps to replace quality apps. Arch/Linux here i come, i'll assemble my own suite of apps and to hell with these mono scumbags. KDE and XFCE desktops instead of Gnome from now on.
Inkscape rules.
Sorry, were we talking about something else?
Ze Atomic Device! It iz Ztolen!
I'm not familiar with the negative association you mention, but I do have a negative association with the word "Gimp": it's slang for a crippled person. Just what I need: software that hobbles along!
One thing that Linux seriously needs to get over is the need to name everything with acronyms. Mozilla didn't call their browser the Standard Link-browsing Universal Gui, because SLUG is a horrible name for a browser. And GIMP is a horrible name for... well, anything.
Then the icon is this crazed badger or something. I'm confused from the get-go.
The complete lack of marketing savvy is one thing that gives Linux the "not ready for prime time" public image. At least Ubuntu makes software that doesn't scare people.
Damn, between the new "Drop Trow" secure Fedora and Umbootooss "Don't scare the children" safe linuks{1} distro - where do I go for the "not stupid" distro?
WTF - where did that marketing department get started - quick, kill it before we all have jello for brains - mmmmm beeeer
{1} x is just such an aggresive letter, it's like cross and all - we should leave it alone to think abot issues & stuff
is done to help lock-in a Mono requirement for Ubuntu.
/MonoNoNo FTW
...when someone shows me software that can edit PDFs seamlessly, and then export them to the file format of my choice. (Sorry, ImageMagick doesn't cut it.)
... are not using Linux.
Wow, you seem a bit paranoid.
One approach might be to take Canonical to the Better Business Bureau for this fraud : it is not allowed to send someone a product, unsolicited, and then ask for payment later.
Citation needed. When I download Ubuntu, that's hardly unsolicited -- if I want, I can look up every single package that's on the install disc. I also see no evidence that any part of Ubuntu is asking for payment later, except the parts that are not enabled unless I deliberately do so. In fact, I only know of one such program, and it's not even in the desktop version of Ubuntu.
it is not allowed to send someone a product, unsolicited, and then ask for payment later. That's what's happening with F-Spot (the M$ competitor to Solang, Digikam), Tomboy (the M$ competitor to Zim, Getting-things-gnome, Knotes and BasKet) or Banshee (the M$ competitor to Amarok, Rhythmbox, Totem and XMMS).
Big gigantic citation needed.
Ok, first of all: I don't use Mono, but the first article you link to is flat-out wrong. Anyone who's used both C# and Java in any serious way will tell you that C# has things Java doesn't. You can debate whether or not they're good and useful things, but they exist, and it is easy to argue that C# is a better language than Java.
Just one example: Code blocks. Not just anonymous functions -- Java has an incredibly cumbersome way to do this, by wrapping the function in an anonymous class and ending up with something even more verbose than Javascript -- but something even more lightweight, with some language syntax explicitly designed for, "take this chunk of code and pass it as a value."
It's one of the things I love about Ruby, and I'm not about to abandon Ruby for C#, but at first glance, C# seems to do it better.
But moreover, you've got a list of things here which you've adorned with "M$", which at first glance seem to be serious open-source projects with no ties to Microsoft, and no evidence at all of ever planning to charge money.
In particular, you're suggesting Digikam and Amarok as potential replacements. Digikam may be small enough, but still depends on KDE -- and it is included by default in Kubuntu. Amarok was once included by default in Kubuntu, and still might be, but its KDE4 release was a huge regression in functionality and stability, and it's also kind of huge -- and also heavily tied to KDE libs and Qt.
So while they would work, for performance reasons alone, I'd lean towards Gnome/Gtk applications by default, rather than KDE/Qt, if I were building a Gnome distro.
The M$applications aren't built with reliable technologies.
Again, citation needed. When I've used Mono applications, I haven't experienced nearly the instability you're hinting at.
Mono, to name one of the problems, has a paper trail back to Microsoft via Novell and years of payments from Novell to Microsoft for said products.
Except I don't see Canonical paying Novell, nor do I see Novell (or Microsoft) paying Canonical. So this conspiracy you've woven has no money, has no teeth.
I see a few other problems with this:
First, you seem to believe that Mono is this evil thing that seduces developers into using it instead of Java. After all, you must either believe this, or you must believe that most developers working on Mono projects are deliberately trying to undermine Linux.
That, or a third option -- maybe Mono is actually better?
But you also seem to believe that by using Mono, these programs are bigger, slower, and less reliable.
I don't get it -- if Mono really is bigger, slower, and less reliable, how can it also be shiny and seducing new developers?
You're also suggesting that Canonical and Ubuntu are using these technologies because they want users to be forced to pay eventually, or be forced to move back to Windows eventually. Yet Kubuntu and Xubuntu seem suspiciousl
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
The claims of removing Gimp are just smoke and noise to hid the damage the monomaniacs are doing elsewhere in Debian and Ubuntu.
Microsofters always try to present their schemes as a done deal. It's documented in their bag of tricks. The relevant trick is from plaintiff's exhibit 3096 from the court case Comes v Microsoft. Microsoft appeared prepared to ignore the last state, Iowa, indefinitely in the last unresolved class action case for over-charging. Roll down to page 45 and start reading. Or download the song version.
Regardles, Ubuntu 10.4, Lucid Lynx is just starting. There are several channels through which the mistake can be corrected. One is through brainstorm: Idea #110: No Mono by default in Ubuntu can use your vote.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
f-spot like it's friend tomboy drags tons of "mono" packages, which is of no interest to users and free software in general, maybe scraping this would help saving space for The Gimp ? Besides, f-spot sucks, it's nowhere near Digikam that ships with KDE, and it's not playing in The Gimp category. Most Ubuntu users I know use (non-free) Picasa® or Digikam together with The Gimp.
Well, looks like Ubuntustudio http://ubuntustudio.org/ really serves a purpose...
Or maybe Ubuntu should just ship with "Applications" menu icons that just trigger the "Ubuntu software center" on the corresponding software when clicked, this way the .iso stays light, but user still get a chance to discover the very nice program that The Gimp is.
I'm disappointed, but I guess since I already have GIMP and won't be buying an install disc any time soon, I can't complain. Plus, it's free.
Nobody tries to call Microsoft Internet Explorer MIE, though.
Some Microsoft initialisms start with M (such as MFC); others start with MS (such as 2.8 million Google hits for MSIE).
The world of photo editing is one of the few areas left were there is simply no real competition on the mid to high end. There is Photoshop, and several less powerful apps. I so wanted Gimp to succeed, but the whole interface is simply a train wreck. Power users need more, and normal users will beat their brains in with a crowbar before figuring out how to run Gimp. The only reason its even alive at all, is the aforementioned lack of any competition.
will have trouble with the GIMP. Anyone who can use GIMP productively is also technical enough to install it from the universe repositories.
Yes, I also remove F-Spot because I always remove all mono-based software from my system---I'd prefer my Ubuntu system without any Microsoft-designed software.
But a handle of "RudeTurnip" is no problem? You have a strangely selective problem with rude names.
Or you're talking bollocks.
GIMP is terrible, period. But I kind of need it. Believe it or not it's very very good to draw game sprites for some reason, but feels so bloated and useless for most other tasks out of "resize/move/crop/apply filter". Drawing a picture on it is criminally hard.
I can understand it being removed, but I guess I am adding it back anyway, just like I did with Pidgin in Karmic.
Nothing wrong with getting a slimmer installation. I'd like to get rid of OO.org from the default install too. Hell, get rid of everything non-essential, then have a "desktop-user-experience" package which installs people's most commonly used utils.
There is a lot of crap being posted here.
I am certainly not a professional user in any way, but have used Gimp (the one with Ubuntu 9.04) and Photoshop (most recent on OS/X) about equally.
The windows seem to be pretty much the same. Gimp creates a single one on the left, I have managed to get more than one but hate it, and it was frustrating to mess with it and try to figure out how to get it back into a single stacked window. I think they fixed things considerably by moving the menu bar from the tool window to the "main" window. Photoshop seems to create two big floating windows, one on the left and the other on the right.
I like Gimp's panel that is the current tool options. Photoshop seems to hide the options for the tools in different places depending on the tools. I really dislike the Photoshop slide-out windows on those things on the right and wish they would just put them in tabs in the floating windows like some other things.
I like the fact that you can differentiate the mouse and pen in Gimp and get three tools. Photoshop seems to think the mouse and pen tip are the same tool. And in Gimp if I use the eraser end to pick brushes, I change the eraser's brush, in Photoshop it changes the pen's brush (the only way to change the eraser seems to be to pick eraser with the pen tip, change it, then put the pen tip back). For that I give Gimp a big win in usability. I also think Gimp is enormously better at zooming with the mouse wheel, Photoshop has some very squirrly results when you do this that I really cannot explain on a modern program...
Photoshop seems to make better smoother brush strokes. Gimp had a horrible problem that antialiasing disappeared if you painted when zoomed out more than 1:1 but they seemed to have fixed that, however that sort of bug is pretty close to inexcusable, sorry. Also all brushes other than the default solid ones are useless hacks in Gimp, but appear to produce real painterly effects in Photoshop.
A huge obvious technical benefit of Photoshop is layer grouping (really a tree of compositing operations rather than just a line).
Both programs suffer from an enormous number of mystery components. What do the "chains" mean in the layers? I have clicked them on/off in both and can't see what they do. Selecting regions, cutting and pasting, and somehow getting the pasted thing to "stick" is a complete mystery.
I may have missed if someone else raised this point. Graphics editor is not the same as photo editor. I have been using GIMP to produce reasonable quality hiking maps. Here the ability to separate content by layers is critical. Contour lines, road and streams, my GPS data, and finally text anotation, each have their own layer. For example see: Resulting JPEG http://www.jtphillips.com/NBATC/MainTopPriest.jpg GIMP file http://www.jtphillips.com/NBATC/MainTopPriest.xcf
Alright well honestly...this isn't devastating "news" if you want to call it that. I think GIMP is a terrific program, very comparable to those such as Adobe Photoshop and Paint Shop Pro. I also think its terrific because, well, its free! If they don't include it that just means a faster install time. Less stuff to worry about writing to hard disk. You can always install it yourself later on ;-)
Do I find this next to the g-spot? g'd dangit, I cant find either!
Ohhh its preinstalled you say, nevermind.
Using an older distro, the Gimp was the only app that allowed for proper document scanning. It actually called up Xsane and it works quite well. The weird thing is that if you tried Xsane from the menu it wouldn't work by it's self at all. So I hope this has been resolved or thought about since then.
i use imagemagick instead of the gimp. know why?
--command line interface of imagemagick is easier to use and understand than the fucking gimp
know what happens when you complain to gimp people about their UI?
--they rip off your head and shit down your throat.
Losers+Users so it stands to reason..
One of the ways of introducing people to alternative software is to install it and have in sitting there on the menu. By removing the GIMP, they're just encouraging people to think that linux is "not ready for serious users."
I agree 100%. And judging from the response from the "monomaniacs" elsewhere on this topic you have identified a very important way of introducing people to FOSS. But one that runs counter to their apparent goals.
Part of the apparent goals of the monomaniacs is to steer any loose strays back into Microsoft lock-in, and ideally wholly back into MS Windows. The specious reasons offered for removal of GIMP look grounded in the idea that Ubuntu must become top-to-bottom Microsoft technology. Microsoft hasn't done much of any technology right during the time it's been around. Is it a wise choice to start letting them gut two fine distros, Ubuntu and Debian, to fill them with expensive, defective sublicensed software?
One confrontational approach might be to take Canonical to the Better Business Bureau for this fraud : it is not allowed to send someone a product, unsolicited, and then ask for payment later. That's what's happening with F-Spot (the M$ competitor to Solang, Digikam), Tomboy (the M$ competitor to Zim, Getting-things-gnome, Knotes and BasKet) or Banshee (the M$ competitor to Amarok, Rhythmbox, Totem and XMMS). Use now, pay later. If you compare the individual applications, you'll also see that the M$ version rather sucks, especially in regards to performance, but even in function and usability. The M$applications aren't built with reliable technologies. The regulars are and use python, c++ or java.
Mono, to name one of the problems, has a paper trail back to Microsoft via Novell and years of payments from Novell to Microsoft for said products. You use Mono with the understanding that it is a sub-licensed product that must be rented. The payment for the right to use it is paid by Novell for the time being. Who may be asked to pay may be up for grabs in the future, but patent law says it is the user and 5 years of receipts say that the payment is not just obligatory but accepted by the community. And standard business practice says that if it has become indispensible, then price is what the market will bear...
Lucid is not out yet, so there is time to undo or head off the damage done by the "monomaniacs"
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
I haven't heard that it runs on Ubuntu, even if you are so foolish as to install the .NET emulation (mono).
I suppose it might be a good example of what portable means to MS, but I don't know that it's even that. It seems supremely ignorable in this context.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
So I've used various drawing programs for years to make crappy little graphical schematics to post online. MS Paint is all I really need, although I've used Photoshop and similar programs as well.
I heard a lot about how powerful GIMP was, and my Mac didn't come with even a basic drawing tool, so I downloaded it. Lasted... oh, maybe 2 minutes.
The issue came when I wanted to draw a line. Now, every other graphics program I've used has a "line" tool, somewhere in plain sight. Observe: ...and so on. Such was not the case for GIMP. In GIMP, you use the Shift key with other tools to draw lines. Not an inherently bad way of doing things, I guess. But here's how you have to find out about it:
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-vista/Using-Paint
http://www.extropia.com/tutorials/photoshop/line_tool.html
http://www.gimp.org/tutorials/Straight_Line/ (That's from the official GIMP site, mind you.)
Hey, GIMP guys. Screw you and your sarcastic screenshot telling me what the "Shift" button is. Your interface is the WEIRD one. People who use MS Paint or Photoshop or friggin' ClarisWorks - your potential customers - expect "line" to be a tool, not a key. And it's not like the key is entitled "Shift Or Draw Straight Lines In Some Linux Programs." It is NON-OBVIOUS that this would be the manner you draw lines. I don't care that I had to look up how to use a new interface, but don't act like I'm supposed to psychically fucking know ahead of time how your arbitrary interface works.
Note how both MS Paint and Photoshop are way MORE straightforward in this operation, and yet avoid sarcasm in their tutorials.
The title implies no GIMP in Ubuntu when it is only being removed from the install CD
Thank a veteran -- George
Honestly. F-spot is awful. Gthumb actually works -- you can do complicated stuff like decide which directory you want photos to be in. First thing I do with a new ubuntu install is dump f-spot, install gthumb, go through the effing rigamorole to make it the default app for that, and curse a whole bunch. For any actual image processing, it's gimp. Duh.
The gnome devs have so many stupid defaults sometimes I wonder what planet they live on. Just one example: you can't rename the desktop icons for media. It's "8GB-drive" or whatever. I have about three separate USB thumbdrives, all 8GB, and no way to name them something useful because I'm such a dumb user that would confuse me.
The only one with enough clout to kick those guys is probably Shuttleworth. So why in hell isn't he doing it?
What a pity! I was delighted to discover GIMP in Dapper and have been very glad to be free from Photoshop etc. ever since. I suppose it will still be downloadable and compatible with 10.04? Anyone know?
You know, the 95% of people that can't use gimp would probabably be able to use it if there were friggen line and circle tools. The program is completely non-intuitive for a newb. It took me a lot of hands on work to get the feel of how to work with it. Now I love it, but I still wish it had a circle tool.
This is more about making users use F-Spot, an unpopular and feature-deficient piece of software to say the least. This is probably more about sneaking more mono into Gnome than anything else.
first remove mono and monoprograms and then install gimp,gthumb,gnote (soon rhythmbox)
Mendacem Memorem Esse Oportet
I like the fact that I can have GIMP on a live CD, very convenient. Sometimes I don't have internet access, so downloading from the package manager is not feasible. I always thought of Ubuntu as 'bloated' compared to other distros, and that never stopped me from using it in some situations. It's just a different market. I don't think GIMP is any harder than MS paint, and the help is much better anyway. If people are lazy to read documentation, then what can you do? There are no universal symbols for everything in computing, at some point if they want to learn something they will have to read (in their own language if possible). But anyway, there will always be some distro with more utilities anyway that I can use as a live CD.
I don't use GIMP a lot, but what I do use it for, I consider it essential. Its wicked powerful enough. Ok, I admit I use it mostly (now) for converting picture file formats, but you can use it for tweaking textures and photos too, which I expect I will be using it for a lot more in the future. It is a little hard to use, but I've seen software that is hard to use, transformed into easier-to-use software (read Blender). 2.5 isn't out yet, but there are a lot of back-end uses for Gimp aimed at blender (part of the pipeline). You can do some texture painting in Blender, but the Gimp does this better. Oh, and in the Gimp vs Photoshop debate, its a thin debate whether Photoshop really is any better than Blender. In the Blender vs Maya debate, there are a LOT of features in Blender that kick Mayas butt hard (oh and 3ds max and others too). The upcoming version of Blender (even the beta version) is wicked sick!
F-Spot sucks! Everything about F-Spot sucks. It is tidious to use, use a lot of resources and is buggy as hell. It doesn't have anything good to offer. It's pure crap.
Rythmbox sucks. But at least it's not Banshee, right?
Tomboy is a good idea, but it is just too buggy and resource hungry to be useful.
Beagle sucks, it is just too buggy and resource hungry to compensate for its relatively small usefulness.
Empathy, I don't know if it sucks, but I don't need it.
OpenOffice sucks. But I might need it. (I would love lightweight document-viewers to replace it. As a production tool it sucks. Documents created in OO look as crappy as if they were created in MS Office and it is almost as tidious to use. But you still have too be able to read a lot of documents).
Evolution, all its bells and whistles that I don't use because I'm not a desktop jockey (just like most Ubuntu users) makes it a security nightmare.
Firefox sucks. But you need it for webpages were you can't use a more user friendly, less buggy, less resource hungry and faster browser. God I hate to install 30+ plugins to make FF useful and resonably secure (but slow as molasses and as bug ridden as a cheep whore). Either get rid of it from Ubuntu or make Flashblock, NoScript, NoSquint, Downthemall and all the other necessery stuff preinstalled in the distribution with good settings. Oh, and a good set of user stylesheets and scriptmonkey scripts (most Ubuntu users aren't savvy enough to create those themselfes). Or just ship Ubuntu with Opera or some other more useable browser. With enough users, webpage makers have to start support other browsers then IE and Firefox.
It is just to much crap to uninstall. And the dependencies in apt is fucked up and make all unnecessery things hard to get rid of. So either I install Ubuntu minimal and have to manually install all the stuff I need (and I still can't get rid of Evolution if I want to use GNOME and automatic updates), or I install Xubuntu which has less crappy crapware that is easier to uninstall.
I prefer GNOME before XFCE, but either I had to stop using Ubuntu with it's large userbase and good support from external players (like online banks, software and hardware makers, et.c.), or I would have to spend hours to hunt down unnecessecery useless stuff that Ubunut put into their GNOME version (and I still wouldn't get rid of Evolution that is to thightly integrated into Ubuntu) or use slightly less time, but still hours, to install everything I need manually from Ubuntu Minimal.
Don't know why I'm getting modded down on this, it's straight from a gimp's mouth. There are lots of user friendlier image editing programs that have sprung up due to the warts of gimp.
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/MinimalCD
(remember Debian NetInstall ? this is it for Ubuntu)
You don't have Internet ? There is a MegaUbuntu DVD available somewhere.With it you can install almost everything from the disk.
Problem is, easiest way to get it is to download it...
It takes 40+ muscles to frown, but only four to extend your arm and bitchslap the motherfucker
As long as it is an apt-get away, it's no big deal.
ubuntu has been doing that with each release. 9.10 removed pidgin for empathy witch i personalty don't like it yes it can do voice chat but thats its only advantage over pidgin everything else it just seems to lack compared. and most linux user just use skype anyways. in fact 9.10 did not come with gimp it came with f-spot so this is old news. as for f-spot i agree it is good enough for most users. i dont do any major photo stuff on any pc and for those that do know of gimp aruldy. for you basic viewer and stuff f-spot does the job.
I use gimp a lot, and it is quite powerfull, but the interface sucks. I dont like having this many floating panels and windows. Inkscape on the other hand is really good. I showed to some illustrator users and they liked. It is simple, light and fast.
Too powerful for normal users, too limited for power users.
The Gimp is just fine for power users. Not only does it have all the standard functionality that such software should have, it has an excellent plug-in and scripting system. I'm sorry die-hard Photoshop users have a hard time figuring out how to do things in the Gimp, but that's not the Gimp's problem... Photoshop's UI is hardly intuitive either.
Image editing is still way behind Windows and Mac OSX
I don't think so. Gimp/Photoshop aside, there is a lot more image processing available on Linux out of the box than on those other platforms.
If the source code is missing, there's a good chance that (1) the software will stop getting developed at some point, or (2) the authors will charge for it at some point. Either of those possibilities is a big risk to users. Availability of source code reduces my risk, and that's not an "abstract" feature, it's something that affects me every day.
With the Gimp, I can be certain that it will be here 10 years from now and that I don't have to deal with the hassles of installing and upgrading commercial software.
Gimp is for serious graphics users... F-Spot is for organizing and doing basic editing. I can see the logic here. Give the users the basics to start with, and let them add to it. That seems logical. Personally I use Gimp and it's a great program. It's been around for a long time, and is extremely powerful. The issue is the learning curve for those that have used Photoshop and other proprietary programs. But, once you get over the learning curve hurdle, you will realize that Gimp can do what the proprietary programs can do. http://members.apex-internet.com/sa/windowslinux
I liked GIMP but found many steps are involved to do simple tasks.
Protip: I think GIMP is just as much a totally misdesigned piece of shit Winnome WinDE, OpenMSlikeOffice, VI, Emacs, and Clippy.
But as this has nothing to do with my argument, that bad interface design is no argument to kill freedom by dropping choices, you made no point. There is nothing to refute.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
and the first thing I do after I upgrade/install is apt-get remove f-spot
-- It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. -- Aristotle
Just do a forked version with a different name. A straight copy of the code. Everything exactly the same, except the name.
Personally, I think an operating system should have the basic tools for the user to be able to do very basic things that the average user needs and/or wants to do on a computer. This is why Windows has MS Paint. Is it a top end photo editing tool? No. But it lets you play around a little bit if that's what you want to do, and then later, if you decide you want to, you can get something better. GIMP is just too much for your average user who might just want to fool around with image editing, and honestly, it shouldn't be a big issue to install it yourself after OS installation.