GIMP Painter And GIMP Paint Studio Transform GIMP Into The Ultimate Painting Tool

GIMP Paint Studio

GIMP Paint Studio is a package that comes with new tools and brushes, designed to improve the drawing capabilities of GIMP. We've covered GIMP Paint Studio a long time ago (wow, almost 2 years ago) and many things have changed since then - most importantly, GIMP Paint Studio now comes with an Ubuntu PPA so it's very easy to install it in Ubuntu.

GIMP Paint studio can be used for many tasks, including painting, erasing, blurring, airbrushing, inking and special effects.

For those who are not familiar with GIMP Paint Studio, here is a video introduction:

To add the PPA and install GIMP Paint Studio in Ubuntu (you obviously need to install GIMP first), use the following commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:shnatsel/gimp-paint-studio
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install gimp-paint-studio

You can also download GIMP Paint Studio from its Google Code page - there are Windows .exe files available too, as well as a GIMP Paint Studio manual available in English, Spanish and Portuguese.

GIMP Painter

GIMP Paint Studio is "particularly useful with GIMP-Painter patch" says the GIMP Paint Studio PPA.

GIMP Painter adds some color blending and line smoothing features you can see in the video below (the video is quite old though):

Unfortunately, GIMP Painter is not a separate package but a whole patched GIMP. If you're using GIMP from the official Ubuntu repositories (Karmic, Lucid or Maverick), the installation is very easy - just copy/paste the following commands in a terminal:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mizuno-as/gimp-painter
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

If you're using a newer GIMP version such as the latest stable version (available in the WebUpd8 PPA for example) - 2.6.11, you won't be able to use the above PPA because it has the same GIMP version as the official Ubuntu repositories (2.6.10 for Maverick). You can however install it, either by purging the PPA, downgrading GIMP or the easiest way: manually download the GIMP packages and install them using a terminal.

To do this, download the following .deb files:

- Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat

32bit:

• gimp-data
• gimp
• libgimp2.0

64bit:

• gimp-data
• gimp
• libgimp2.0

- Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx

32bit:

• gimp-data
• gimp
• libgimp2.0

64bit:

• gimp-data
• gimp
• libgimp2.0

To install the above packages, download them all in some folder, let's say the "gimp" folder in your home directory and then use the following commands to install it:

cd ~/gimp
sudo dpkg -i *.deb

Now GIMP with the GIMP Painter patch should be installed. Make sure you don't upgrade GIMP (as well as gimp-data and libgimp2.0 or else you'll lose the GIMP Painter patch!

Important: this will only work if you're using GIMP 2.6.11 and it won't work if you use GIMP 2.7.x (if you're using 2.7.x, the only way to install GIMP with the Painter patch is to purge the PPA from where you've installed GIMP 2.7.x!).

Also see:

• GIMP Plugin Registry 3.5.1 Gets ~129 New Plugins
• G'MIC: More Than 190 Image Filters And Effects For GIMP

The GIMP Plugins In Ubuntu 10.10 Could Become 1000 Times Faster Thanks To OpenCL

A post on the GIMP users website points out that Ubuntu 10.10 comes with OpenCL support which means that multimedia or image processing applications such as GIMP or the GIMP plugins can use OpenCL (hardware acceleration) to get an amazing performance boost - the post says this could make the GIMP plugins 1000 times faster and even though it seems a bit unrealistic, it's still pretty exciting. However, it won't work with the existing plugins - they will have to be re-written to take advantage of OpenCL.

Please note: this will only work with the OpenCL driver shipped with Nvidia 17x+ or the ATI SDK (so you'll have to install the proprietary drivers). Also, you need to have a CUDA enabled Nvidia graphics card (G80 GPUs, 8xxx series) or ATI with Close to Metal (2xxx series) to use it.

For more info, see the post @ gimpusers.com.

Thanks to bhm for the clarifications

Fix Intel GMA500 "Poulsbo" Graphics In Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx [PPA]

I recently came upon an Ubuntu 10.04 PPA with Intel GMA500 "Poulsbo" packages which you can use to get everything working. Well, almost everything as only 2D will work, 3D unfortunately is not supported.

This PPA aims to port the Mandriva patches for the psb driver to Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx in order to enable GMA500 support in Xorg 1.7.x.

Before adding the PPA and installing the packages, please note that I don't own an Intel GMA500 graphics card anymore so I didn't test this!

Add the PPA in Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx and install the Intel GMA500 Poulsbo packages using the following commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:gma500/ppa && sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install poulsbo-driver-2d poulsbo-driver-3d poulsbo-config

Then reboot.


Note: because 3D won't work, Compiz will be removed!

Specific netbooks instructions

On Asus and Sony Vaio add the following workaround:

-run this in a terminal:

sudo nano /etc/default/grub

And find the line that begins with "GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT" and modify it so that it looks like below:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash mem=2000mb acpi_osi=Linux"

Then update your GRUB:

sudo update-grub

On Acer 751h, to fix battery status, add this to startup (System > Preferences > Startup Applications):

cat /proc/acpi/battery/BAT1/info

How to Enable Direct2D Acceleration in Ubuntu [ATI Cards]

If you hear the term Direct2D, you are probably thinking of some outdated technology that preceded the Direct3D. That, however, is not true; Direct2D has only been introduced recently with Windows 7 and Server 2008. Although made by Microsoft, the Linux alternative shares the same name (well, almost; officially, it's Direct2DAccel). And yes, this is for X - not for Wine or anything like that.

What does Direct2DAccel do?

D2D enables graphic cards to do what we always wanted them to do – perform graphic tasks. Unless you are playing video games (probably not so much if you are using Linux), your graphic card's processor (GPU) doesn't do a whole lot – even when you are playing movies. That all made sense in the beginning, when GPU's power was 75-150 MHz. However, the GPUs nowadays are capable of running much faster than that and they hunger for jobs.

Direct2D seeks to eliminate dependency on CPU and transfer it to the GPU. For example, DirectDraw instructs mostly the CPU to draw windows, frames, play videos etc. The processors have always been strong enough to do all those tasks, but why buy a fast GPU if it does nothing?


I have personally tested Direct2D rendering on my machine and it is fabulous! Since it is still in experimental stage, there are some bugs that need to be fixed, but the progress has been huge (the last time I tested it little over 20 days ago it was virtually unusable). Drawing windows is much faster and Compiz runs smoother (there is no longer a 0.5 second lag when maximizing/minimizing your window that many ATI owners experienced).

How to enable Direct2DAccel?

First, let me make you aware of my testing environment:

• Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx (latest updates)
• ATI HD5750
• FGLRX 8.723.1-0ubuntu2 (available from repos)
• OpenGL on and direct rendering is on

To enable Direct2DAccel, go to terminal and type:

sudo aticonfig --set-pcs-str=DDX,Direct2DAccel,TRUE

Then restart X.


If something goes wrong, here's the way to revert it:

sudo aticonfig --del-pcs-key=DDX,Direct2DAccel

Now as I said, there are still bugs that need to be addressed, as well as functions that need to be implemented. The most notable one is that video does not play well or at all. However, there is a workaround for this:

First, load some video in Totem player or VLC or whatever you use - maybe it will work just fine. If not:


For Gstreamer based players (Totem e.g.)

In a terminal, type:

gstreamer-properties

Then click on Video tab, under Default Output select the one that says "X Window System (No Xv)". Then see if it works.



If you are using VLC:

Go to Tools > Preferences > Video, and under output, select “X11 Video Output (XCB)” or “GLX Video Output (XCB)” (test both and see which one performs the best for you).

Selecting the “Without Xv” instructs the system NOT to use graphic card for rendering video which defies the purpose of Direct2D; BUT, as I mentioned, D2D is still highly experimental and not all features are implemented. If you have a good CPU then this shouldn't be an issue (I have quad-core Phenom II ). I don't know if weaker CPUs will have problems playing videos - they shouldn't, but please let me know in comments!


I averaged about 20% CPU usage while watching a DVD movie in Totem. I have no HD movies here at the moment so I'd be curious to see how they perform.


In any case, at this pace, we should have a fully functional D2D acceleration by the time the Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid final release comes out!

This is a guest post by Deusdies (thank you very much!)

ATI Finally Releases Video Driver With Ubuntu Karmic (9.10) Support

ATI (AMD) released a new version of it's ATI Catalyst proprietary display driver for Linux. Version 10.1 finally brings support for the new Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala, a bit late considering there are only 3 months till Ubuntu Lucid will be released, but it's still good news for a lot of Ubuntu 9.10 users.


Thew new Ati Catalyst 10.1 also brings a few fixes which you can view @ Softpedia.

Download ATI/AMD Linux Display Drivers 10.1

Nvidia 195.22 Beta Linux Display Driver Available In Nvidia Vdpau Team PPA [Ubuntu]

Nvidia recently released it's 195.22 beta Linux display driver about a week ago. The new display driver brings VDPAU improvements, support for NVIDIA 3D Vision Stereo (Quatro cards only), better DisplayPort monitor handling, and many other enhancements.

The Nvidia 195.22 graphics drivers are finally available in the Nvidia Vdpau Team PPA so you can easily install them in Ubuntu. You can find installation instructions for the latest Nvidia 195.xx graphics drivers, HERE.

If you don't use Ubuntu, you can download the drivers from HERE.

sK1 Ubuntu Repository (Vector Graphics Editor For Linux)

A few months ago I was telling you about sK1, an open source vector graphics editor similar to CorelDRAW, Adobe Illustrator, or Freehand. At the time, you had to compile it, but now (actually it exists for quite some time, but I wasn't aware of it) there is an Ubuntu repository from where you can install the latest version.

Why sK1 and not InkScape?

While InkScape is oriented to the SVG format and is ideal for web design, sK1 targets professional designers from the prepress world. So sK1 supports CMYK, multiple pages and separating colour plates.

More info about sK1.

Adding sK1 Launchpad PPA repository

Open a terminal and paste the following command to add the PPA repository:

-For Ubuntu Jaunty (9.04):

sudo sh -c "echo 'deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/stani/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main' >> /etc/apt/sources.list"

-For Ubuntu Intrepid (8.10):

sudo sh -c "echo 'deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/stani/ppa/ubuntu intrepid main' >> /etc/apt/sources.list"

Then, add the GPG key:

sudo apt-key adv --recv-keys --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com 7B0FB2CA

And finally, install sK1 in Ubuntu Linux:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install sk1

Download sK1 .deb for Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty) without adding the PPA repo

Additionally, you can just download the Ubuntu .deb if you want. But before installing it, you need to firstly install some dependencies, so open a terminal and paste this:

sudo apt-get install tcl8.5 tk8.5 python-imaging python-imaging-tk python-liblcms python-reportlab

Then you can download and install sK1 .deb: Ubuntu 32 bit | Ubuntu 64bit


A note from the PPA maintainer: this is the development version of sK1 and the packages have not been tested by a critical mass. In case you have problems, you should report them on the sK1 forums. The packaging is not perfect yet. For example there will be no entry in the start menu. This will be fixed in a next release. I've sent Igor from sK1 the necessary files to resolve this issue. So for now start sK1 by typing "sk1" in the run dialog (Alt+F2) or in a terminal.

As a final remark: you need to remove your ~/.sk1 folder, otherwise sK1 might have troubles starting up.

[thanks to Stiani for maintaining the PPA]

Nvidia Updates The Linux Display Drivers

Nvidia updated both the stable and beta drivers for Linux.

185.18.36 (stable) release highlights:

* Fixed a bug that caused kernel panics when starting X on some mobile GPUs.
* Fixed an interaction problem between VDPAU and PowerMizer when using VDPAU solely as a display mechanism, and not to decode video streams. The GPU performance level should now be raised, if required, in this scenario.
* Fixed VDPAU to avoid "display preemption" in some cases where a VdpOutputSurface is deleted while it is still active (either queued or visible) in a VdpPresentationQueue. In particular, this can occur in MPlayer when using the "-fs" option, and could completely prevent VDPAU from operating successfully, depending on the exact timing conditions.

The 185.18.36 NVIDIA Accelerated Linux Graphics Driver Set for Linux/x86 is available for download via HTTP.
The 185.18.36 NVIDIA Accelerated Linux Graphics Driver Set for Linux/x86-64 is available for download via HTTP.

190.25 (beta) is currently under development and most notably it brings support for OpenGL 3.2. The NVIDIA 190.25 driver update just brings fixes and no additional features, but it now supports rejecting video modes based upon DisplayPort bandwidth to fix some corruption issues, an initialization fix for some NVIDIA mobile GPUs, a workaround for an X Server bug, and a nvidia-settings crash fix when displaying GPU information with Xinerama.

The 190.25 NVIDIA Accelerated Linux Graphics Driver Set for Linux/x86 is available for download via FTP.
The 190.25 NVIDIA Accelerated Linux Graphics Driver Set for Linux/x86_64 is available for download via FTP.

[via phoronix]