Programming Web Graphics with Perl and GNU Softwar

Getting and Installing the Gimp

There are a number of ways of getting the Gimp. The main ftp site is ftp://ftp.gimp.org, which also lists 20 or so mirror sites around the world. The Gimp home page is at http://www.gimp.org. A wide array of online information and resources is available, a sampling of which is listed in the Section 7.5 at the end of the chapter.

To reiterate, the Gimp is free software covered by the GNU Public License. You can download the program and libraries and use them for free, but you should read and understand the license if you plan on redistributing the Gimp or re-using any of the code covered by the GPL.

The Gimp installs easily on most Unix systems. There is a port available for OS/2, as well as a limited port for Win32 systems. The Win32 port is not necessarily part of the mission of the core Gimp development team, and it requires an X server and a number of supporting DLLs to operate. It does work, nonetheless, and you can find out how to get it working by visiting the URL listed in the Section 7.5 section. A true Win32 port would first require a port of the underlying GTK toolkit, which is underway.

The easiest way to get the Gimp—if you are running Linux or Solaris—is to grab a binary image from the binaries subdirectory of the main ftp site. These are available as Debian packages, RPM packages, and a dynamically linked precompiled binary for Solaris 2.5.1 and above. If you are running a different Unix, or if you just like compiling things yourself, ...