Dear Brent,
Thanks to you and others for all the good advice on strategies
for updating packages not yet available on the SL repos as
rpms.
I did end up following your advice, and downloaded, configured
and built and installed the source for gimp-2.4.2, which
turned out to be much easier than I expected. All I had to do
was to first build and install glib-2.12.3, then gtk+-2.10.13,
and then pygtk-2.10.4. With the PKG_CONFIG_PATH and
LD_LIBRARY_PATH variables set to find gtk+-2.0.pc and the new
gtk+ libraries, gimp's configure script completed and the
build and install worked just fine.
So now I have the old gimp-2.2.13 in /usr/bin/gimp along with
the new gimp-2.4.2 in /usr/local/bin/gimp and it all works like a
charm.
Since it's so straightforward (at least for my SL 5.0) to
upgrade gimp, and since science is intimately related to art,
it would seem worthwhile to provide a version of gimp more
recent than 2.2 as an rpm on the SL repos. 2.4 has many
improvements; for example, it will put a text string on any
curved path (which is what was motivating me to update gimp).
-- Peter
=================================================================
On Jun 02, 2009 at 8:48 am, Brent L. Bates wrote:
| If you really need the upgraded GIMP, download, configure, compile, and
| install from sources. If you want to separate it from the OS installed
| versions, simply install all the upgraded libraries and utilities in
| /usr/local/. When you configure the newer packages, you'll have to make sure
| they point to the upgraded libraries/utilities in /usr/local/. I do this all
| the time. I prefer having the latest stable/production software with the
| latest security fixes instead of 3 year old, or more, outdated software for a
| number of packages, especially ones that are security related.
|
| --
|
| Brent L. Bates (UNIX Sys. Admin.)
| M.S. 912 Phone:(757) 865-1400, x204
| NASA Langley Research Center FAX:(757) 865-8177
| Hampton, Virginia 23681-0001
| Email: [log in to unmask] http://www.vigyan.com/~blbates/
|
|
