Need help installing Gimp on OSX.

May 24, 2004 9:37 AM

Has anyone successfully installed "The Gimp" for Mac OS X? I've had no luck installing it, whether in handy .dmg form (it says that it can't open my X11.app, even though I have X11), or as compiled by "fink" (in which case it starts kvetching about xfree86 not being set up right.) What can I do to my X to make it accept and welcome The Gimp?
posted by inksyndicate to computers & internet (13 comments total)

for the fink case, you need to have the X11 SDK installed. (This is not the x11.app.) You can get this from the developer's tools CD or from Apple's ADC site.
posted by neustile at 9:50 AM on May 24, 2004

Oh, that could be it. I erased a bunch of X11 files so I could reinstall X11.app. The reason I re-installed it was that Gimp was booting...only there'd be nothing on screen, it was like a blank program.
posted by inksyndicate at 10:02 AM on May 24, 2004

I'll chime in with the possibly tangential observation that I've found Fink to be troublesome -- most specifically, I find that its dependecy recognition is more than a little flawed. This isn't just a problem with Fink -- lots of package managers have it. But I've seen it both over and underestimate dependencies, and since then, I've avoided it.
posted by weston at 10:14 AM on May 24, 2004

If you reinstall the X11 SDK and still have that problem, see if the menu bar changes when you start The Gimp. It may be starting the program but not opening any windows by default--some other programs do this, as well (I'm not on my Mac at the moment, but I think the Activity Monitor is one example of this behavior). If the menu bar changes when you start the program, try opening an existing file or creating a new one from the File menu.
posted by Acetylene at 10:20 AM on May 24, 2004

Thanks for your help. I'll bet this will work.
posted by inksyndicate at 10:27 AM on May 24, 2004

There is this peculiar and possibly problematic bit in the Fink install output, about replacing my existing Apple x11:

Preparing to replace xfree86 4.4.0-1 (using .../xfree86_4.4.0-1_darwin-powerpc.deb) ...
WARNING: if you compile X11 applications against this XFree86 release,
you will *not* be able to run them if you decide to revert to Apple's
X11 provided with Panther.
Unpacking replacement xfree86 ...
posted by inksyndicate at 10:34 AM on May 24, 2004

And then it says it can't, due to some errors.

So then I go back to the .dmg version of The Gimp and boot it up. X11 boots for a little bit, then shrinks and vanishes out of sight. Did I just corrupt X11 with my little Fink attempt?
posted by inksyndicate at 10:48 AM on May 24, 2004

Don't install XFree86 from fink- you're in for a world of hurt unless you want to commit your life to fink (which, believe me, you don't).

Your best bet is to just install X11 and the OS X Gimp bundle from here.
posted by mkultra at 11:31 AM on May 24, 2004

Oh, and delete the /sw directory on your way out (fink and everything associated with it), which should disable your "new" XFree86.
posted by mkultra at 12:06 PM on May 24, 2004

Thanks, mkultra. :) It's a world of hurt I want to avoid -- a lifelong enslavement to Fink.
posted by inksyndicate at 12:12 PM on May 24, 2004

I'll second the recommendation for gimp.app. I'd been using fink previously but it was a pain in the ass. After my last reinstall I killed it and went with gimp.app instead. MUCH better. The app itself looks a lot nicer, in terms of the theme and widgets. (I realize that this is probably something I could've changed myself, but I'm not that l33t.) I also like having a nifty little dock icon for it. Highly recommended.
posted by web-goddess at 4:15 PM on May 24, 2004

Related question: Has anyone been able to get Gimp to use the Mac system fonts? The ones that are included are pretty ugly.
posted by web-goddess at 4:16 PM on May 24, 2004

I installed the apple x11 sdk, the apple x11 app, and gimp 2.0 and it worked flawlessly. My faith in Fink has been waning as of late.
posted by mecran01 at 12:58 PM on May 25, 2004