How to Install GIMP 2.99.2 (Dev for GIMP 3.0) in Ubuntu 20.04

GIMP extra color palettes

GIMP 2.99.2, the first development release for the next major GIMP 3.0, now is available to install for testing purpose.

What’s New in GIMP 2.99.2:

  • GTK+3 user interface
  • Native Wayland and HiDPI support.
  • Major refactoring and cleanup
  • New plug-in API
  • Plugins now possible with Python 3, JavaScript, Lua, and Vala
  • More (color) space invasion
  • Render caching available for better performance

GIMP 2.99.2 is available to install via Flatpak package in the “beta” branch of the official Flathub repository. You can open terminal and run following commands one by one to install it in Ubuntu 18.04, Ubuntu 20.04, and Ubuntu 20.10.

1. Install Flatpak framework if you don’t have it (For Ubuntu 18.04, add this PPA first).

sudo apt install flatpak

2. Add the flathub beta channel via command:

flatpak remote-add --user flathub-beta https://flathub.org/beta-repo/flathub-beta.flatpakrepo

3. Finally install GIMP 2.99.2 via command (for single user only):

flatpak install --user flathub-beta org.gimp.GIMP

Once installed, launch it from ‘Show Applications’ menu and enjoy! In the case, I have GIMP 2.10 (via deb) and GIMP 2.99.2 (via flatpak).

NOTE: If you installed both GIMP flatpak stable and beta packages, only one will be visible in app launcher. To make beta version visible, run command:

flatpak make-current --user org.gimp.GIMP beta

And to make stable version visible, replace beta in the command with stable.

Uninstall GIMP 2.99.2:

To remove the package, simply run command:

flatpak uninstall org.gimp.GIMP