HowToCompileGimp

How to compile Gimp on Windows

You should probably get Unix. Otherwise, see [HowToCompileGimp/MicrosoftWindows].

How to compile Gimp on Mac OS X with native GTK port (no X11)

Even though the Unix instructions below apply, more detailed step-by-step instructions can be found here HowToCompileGimp/MacOSX.

How to Compile Gimp on Unix (GNU/Linux, MacOSX, xBSD,...)

1. Get the sources from download section

2. untar them with tar and gzip (for .tar.gz) or bzip2 (for tar.bz2)

3. Use the classical

./configure
make
make install

Note: if you know the args you can do the whole thing in one line:

./configure [--arg1 --arg2 ....] && make && make install

If configure stop with an error, make will not be called. If make fail, make install will not be called.

• Look at INSTALL text file for required library and configure arguments

gimp ./configure options

./configure accept several arguments helping to tuning your compilation, like: --help if you type: ./configure --help, you will have a list of supported options.

--prefix=/path/for/my/gimp where /path/for/my/gimp is the path where Gimp will be installed.

--enable-mmx --enable-sse --enable-altivec --enable-mp activate by default some cpu specific acceleration. mmx/sse is for x86 optimisation, altivec for ppc optimisation, and mp for multiple processors computers.

--disable-print don't use libgimpprint capabilities.

--enable-python enable python scripting extensions.

--enable-gtk-doc use gtk-doc to build documentation.

--enable-gimp-console build a console-only binary which does not link GTK+

--without-libtiff don't compile tiff file format support (needs libtiff to be compiled)

--without-libjpeg don't compile jpeg file format support (needs libjpeg to be compiled)

--without-libpng don't compile png file format support (needs libpng to be compiled)

--without-libmng don't compile mng file format support (needs libmng to be compiled)

--without-libexif don't compile exif photo information support (needs libexif to be compiled)

--without-aa don't compile Ascii Art support (needs libaa to be compiled)

--with-gif-compression=lzw|rle|none compression used for gif file format (patented lzw compression, free simple rle compression, or none)

--with-pdbgen use 'pdbgen' code generation tool (only useful if you want to make changes to the PDB)

configure defaults

./configure script will try to automatically detect if you have required library and stop with an error message displaying which one is missing.

the default prefix is /usr/local/

compiling from cvs version

If you get the cvs version, there will be no configure script initially. You have to use autogen.sh instead of configure:

./autogen.sh

in the gimp directory. Please read the file HACKING that explains what autogen.sh does for you.