[Gimp-developer] Compiling and using 2.7

[Ray Simard <rhs gimp-dev sylvan-glade com>]

I've taken my first shot at compiling GIMP from scratch. In this case, I
wanted to create a Cygwin-based version.  There were a few bumps in the
road:

1. configure doesn't figure out the symbol prefix $(SYMPREFIX)properly.
It should be an underscore, but configure set it to an empty string.
Manually changing it in config.status and re-running it worked around
the problem.

2. In app/base/base-utils.c, there's a header (execinfo.h) used for
backtrace that's not available. I saw some other mention of it somewhere
that suggested it's not available and, perhaps temporarily, changed it
to simply strdup a "Not available" message in return. I hope to dig into
that further later on.

3. The libffi that Cygwin installs (/usr/bin/cygffi-4.dll) has an import
library and libtool library file, but they are buried deep in
 /usr/lib/gcc/... and there's nothing in pkgconfig, so the configuration
code and libtool couldn't find them.  I compiled new sources and
installed and that produced a newer version with the requisite
information (but the -4 is needed by something in glib and has to be
left alone).

4. I can't get anywhere with devel-docs, and reconfigured to leave them
out. I didn't take a lot of time, though; I'd like to later.

But now the weird stuff.

Upon launching Gimp, there are some complaints about missing files from
the GEGL DLLs, which I need to check into.  I don't think they pertain
to what follows.

I know close to nothing about Python, so this is totally newbie stuff in
that area.

At first gimpfu, gimpui and others couldn't be imported.  I set
PYTHONPATH, and later PYTHONINSPECT, but strangely, although I could run
python interactively and list modules and they would show up, they
didn't when Gimp was loading. I eventually added symlinks in
/usr/lib/python2.6 to everything in Gimp's python directory and that
took care of everything except this:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/local/lib/gimp/2.0/plug-ins/text-brush.py", line 20, in
<module>
    from gimpfu import *
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/gimpfu.py", line 76, in <module>
    import gimp
ImportError: No module named gimp

with similar messages for all of the other modules.

There is an object library gimp.a and libtool gimp.la, but nothing else
named just gimp.* in /usr/local/lib/gimp/2.0/python.  The .la file has
an empty dlname, so I am not sure what is supposed to happen here. In
any case, python isn't finding the gimp module.

It would be understandable if that is responsible for the problems that
follow, but some seem unrelated, so I'll mention them anyway.

It doesn't give up; after that; then this comes up:

(gimp-2.7:6384): LibGimpBase-WARNING **: gimp-2.7: gimp_wire_read(): error
Error: (<unknown> : 5986618) define: unable to alter immutable GREEN-HUES
Error: (<unknown> : 5986884) define: unable to alter immutable
GRID-DOUBLE-DASH
Error: (<unknown> : 6034280) define: unable to alter immutable PDB-END
Error: (<unknown> : 6035008) define: unable to alter immutable
GRADIENT-CONICAL-ASYMMETRIC

and a long list of similar errors follows.

Finally, this happens:

...
Error: (<unknown> : 448) define: unable to alter immutable CUSTOM-PALETTE
Error: (<unknown> : 119) not enough arguments
script-fu.exe-Warning: Error while loading
/usr/local/share/gimp/2.0/scripts/basic2-logo.scm:

Error: (/usr/local/share/gimp/2.0/scripts/basic2-logo.scm : 92)
script-fu-register: argument types must be integer values


script-fu.exe-Warning: Error while loading
/usr/local/share/gimp/2.0/scripts/beveled-button.scm:

Error: (/usr/local/share/gimp/2.0/scripts/beveled-button.scm : 158)
script-fu-register: argument types must be integer values


script-fu.exe-Warning: Error while loading
/usr/local/share/gimp/2.0/scripts/beveled-pattern-button.scm:

Error: (/usr/local/share/gimp/2.0/scripts/beveled-pattern-button.scm :
133) script-fu-register: argument types must be integer values

with similar complaints about what appears to be the entire set of plugins.

It then brings up Gimp's window, but there are no filters listed and
most of the features under Colors are missing.  I can load an image and
do some of the usual actions on it.

(I see a means of grouping layers has been added.  This looks like it
will be a godsend. Thanks!)

It's getting rather late and I've been at this for some time, so I'm
going to leave it alone for a while, but perhaps someone can give me a
jump-start on where to look to take care of these thinks.

Thanks for any help,
Ray Simard
rhs gimp sylvan-glade com