[AppleLaw]

Hi,

Could someone tell me (1) where to get and (2) how to run in OS X the program called "The Gimp."

It's supposedly a decent Photoshop alternative. Since I'm an educational customer in the market for PS7 now, I figure it would be wise to check out the alternatives for now.

I know I'll need XDarwin and have installed the latest version (although it looks Greek to me). All I need now is to find a working download link and perhaps instructions on how to start the program once I've downloaded.

Thanks a lot.

[piwozniak]

homepage:
blank>The Gimp

download section:
blank>download area

instructions on how to run it on OS X can be found here (i hope :-) ):
macgimp

HTH

[AppleLaw]

Thanks for the info, piwozniak. I was able to download the "stable" version just fine.

I am having some installation problems, though. You're supposed to run this ./config command, then "make" to compile, then "make install" to install.

What I don't get is: do you run these commands from XDarwin or from the Terminal?

Either way, when I run them, I get this:

quote:

---

Last login: Mon Nov 4 22:54:12 on console
Welcome to Darwin!
[DPG4:~] psamaan% cd /Users/psamaan/Desktop/gimp-1.2.3/
[DPG4:~/Desktop/gimp-1.2.3] psamaan% ./configure
loading cache ./config.cache
checking for a BSD compatible install... /usr/bin/install -c
checking whether build environment is sane... yes
checking whether make sets ${MAKE}... no
checking for working aclocal... found
checking for working autoconf... missing
checking for working automake... found
checking for working autoheader... missing
checking for working makeinfo... found
checking for gcc... no
checking for cc... no
configure: error: no acceptable cc found in $PATH
[DPG4:~/Desktop/gimp-1.2.3] psamaan% make install
make: Command not found.

---

Does that sound right to you, or have I done something stupid?

[piwozniak]

hi
blank>this schould solve all your problems

also check this site:

blank>web page

Have Fun

[Nobody]

AppleLaw, be sure you have the Developer's tools installed. Your error indicates that the compiler - gcc - was not found, and it is part of the Developer's toolkit.

[AppleLaw]

Thanks for the help, guys... will download the manual and install Developer Tools.

images/icons/smile.gif

[AppleLaw]

Wow, that 400+ MB install of developer's tools was worth it just for SimpleText! I loved this program in OS 9.

[piwozniak]

it's not the manual you want, it's OS X package, contains everything you will need to run it.

(there is also manual images/icons/grin.gif link)

Unless you want to have fun and 'do it yourself'

[AppleLaw]

lol, the fun of doing it myself... no thanks!

I download that huge 186 MB file and installed it.

However, I don't see any application or anything that would allow me to run this program.

Soooo... how do you launch this thing? lol

I must look stupid now, but this Developer stuff is not up my alley. I just do web sites.

[Nobody]

AppleLaw: If you're having this much trouble just getting it installed, I'd be incredibly surprised if you could do anything useful with it. In my opinion, Gimp is only a photoshop alternative for hardcore unix/linux geeks. The rest of us would be better off using photoshop LE or Graphicconverter.

[AppleLaw]

What, you need Linux/Unix knowledge just to work it and change colours or something?

If so, I'll buy Photoshop.

I thought that this developer stuff was needed only to compile and run it.

[Nobody]

AppleLaw, if the site you downloaded from had a binary install, it should have unstuffed into a directory somewhere. From within an XDarwin terminal window, just "cd" to that directory, then type "./gimp" (or whatever the OS X port of gimp is being called). If you want, you could make a symlink in a directory in your path (/usr/local/bin is good for this kind of thing), then you would no longer have to "cd" to the program directroy.

Once the Gimp starts, it does not require any further knowledge of UNIX to use it - it is a fully GUI driven graphics program.

P.S. I do not have Gimp on either of my OSX machines (I use it on my Linux box instead), hence my vagueness about the install directory name - but I'm sure you can find it.

[piwozniak]

AppleLaw i can help you but give me 6 hours.

I left my firewire HD at home and i don't want to install all that stuff on my internal drive.

Thanks

[AppleLaw]

Thanks, pi... take your time. I'm learning more and more about this Unix stuff by the minute.

DrMBB,

Thanks for your reply, too, but the difficulty I have is locating where this package installed everything. I used the Finder search tool to search everywhere for "gimp," but the only items that showed up are the original package installer and some Quicktime Import HTM files in the Developer > Documentation folder. Otherwise, nothing called Gimp anywhere.

Weird, huh? If they're positioning this program to be a Photoshop alternative, why don't they create an icon, startup script, or something like that?