To GIMP Or Not To GIMP
I have been GIMP longer than I have used Photoshop. comfortable with both, I will remain steadfast in my statement that when run on desktop Linux, GIMP is lightyears faster than anything else out there with similar level of ability.
Sadly though, it’s not Photoshop which translates into it not being widely accepted by people who prefer the Adobe based alternative. Then comes this news – Ubuntu is opting to remove GIMP as it is believed to be too complicated for their target audience. Uh, newsflash – I am your typical user! And I think removing it is a mistake.
All of this aside, at least it will be available for easy installation via the repositories. And sticking with F-Spot, is not going to go well with new converts. Sorry, but that software has a ways to go before it is really going to be useful to most people I think. I’d gone with gThumb any day of the week for simple editing, but this is just my take.
2 Comments
Leon Adato
November 21st, 2009
at 8:10pm
I have to disagree. What people want – even among Linux users – is the equivalent of Paint. Gimp is not Paint.
Gimp is not hard either. Especially if all you want to do is crop an image. But then you could use Phatch (which is also not so simple, but still).
Why is Gimp not Paint? Because it is (rightfully so) closer to Photoshop. At the heart of the problem are basic premises. Things like drawing a simple square. It is simply counter-intuitive to select a blank region and then choose “stroke selection”.
I love Gimp and will happily install it from repo in future versions of Ubuntu because, like K3b and BlueFish, it’s on my “pull” list when I build a new machine.
But it doesn’t surprise me A BIT that Ubuntu is opting not to install it by default.
Glenn
January 9th, 2010
at 9:46pm
“Uh, newsflash – I am your typical user!”
And so am I. I absolutely love GIMP and use it quite often.
“At the heart of the problem are basic premises. Things like drawing a simple square. It is simply counter-intuitive to select a blank region and then choose “stroke selection”.”
How is it done in Paint? If you mean clicking a button on the sidebar, GIMP has that, too. I found resizing and cropping images in Paint difficult in the extreme. Of course, I haven’t used Paint for that in many years…maybe it’s improved.
My opinion is that they should leave GIMP in place as a default installation. To date, most Linux users have opted to run Linux and will know what GIMP is. If they don’t already basically know how to use it, they are of the type that will do the research and learn how to use it.
And let’s face it…it’s an excellent demonstration of how powerful FOSS can be. It certainly beats Paint hands-down! And as far as comparisons with Photoshop, it goes to show that you don’t always get what you pay for! :-D