GIMP 2.8.20 Stable Released! [Ubuntu PPA]

A new stable release for the GIMP 2.8 series, GIMP 2.8.20, has been released a few days ago with various bug-fixes.

GIMP 2.8.20 features the fix to the weird initial user interface language selection on mac OS. Also, an annoying oscillating switching between different input devices has been fixed in Windows platforms.

GIMP 2.8.20 changelog:

• Avoid D-Bus error message when built without D-Bus support
• fix OS X min required conditional in gimpimagewindow.c
• Saving to existing .xcf.bz and .xcf.gz files didn’t truncate them and could lead to unnecessarily large files
• Text layer created by gimp-text-fontname doesn’t respect border when resized
• Flow on Paint Dynamics editor dialog: the ‘y’ axis is indicating ‘Rate’ instead ‘Flow’
• Vertical ruler shows artifacts if the status bar isn’t showing
• Tablet stylus misbehaves when crossing the edge of a dock in multi-window-mode
• Disable the new “automatic window tabbing” feature introduced on mac OS Sierra
• Improve the visiblity of slider handles with dark themes
• Make it harder to switch to renaming if selecting already selected items in resource lists
• make toggling to color picker mode of paint tools more robust
• call gimp_file_entry_set_filename() with filename encoding
• Translation updates, plug-in fixes and various other fixes.

How to Install GIMP 2.8.20 in Ubuntu:

For Ubuntu 12.04, Ubuntu 14.04, Ubuntu 16.04, Ubuntu 16.10, and derivatives. An unofficial PPA is available and the maintainer promised to maintain the PPA as long as he live, although the PPA is not updated at the moment of writing this, check the link.

Check the link above to make sure the new release available in PPA before following the steps below:

1. To add the PPA, open terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and run command:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:otto-kesselgulasch/gimp

Type in password when it prompts and hit Enter.

2. Then launch Software Updater (or Update Manager) and you’ll be able to upgrade the editor after checking for updates:

Uninstall:

Simply run the command below in terminal to purge the PPA will remove the repository and downgrade GIMP to the stock version in your Ubuntu repository as well:

sudo apt install ppa-purge && sudo ppa-purge ppa:otto-kesselgulasch/gimp