Where are the plugins when you install w flatpak?

[lac]

I think this is an installation question.  If instead you think it makes more sense as a plugin question, feel free to move this.

I needed to manipulate images, add layers to them, remove artifacts, etc.  I have used gimp before on debian linux, and there were
debian packages that handled the python-fu and other plugins.  But apparently all of that isn't being supported now by debian.  Since I knew
that using resythesizer was going to be a significant part of the job, I went to https://github.com/bootchk/resynthesizer...ynthesizer where it suggested that I install a flatpak verison of gimp 3.2 and then resythesizer for flatpak.  This seemed ok to me.

The command I used to install resythesizer was:
 flatpak install org.gimp.GIMP.Plugin.Resynthesizer org.gimp.GIMP.Plugin.LiquidRescale org.gimp.GIMP.Plugin.Lensfun org.gimp.GIMP.Plugin.GMic org.gimp.GIMP.Plugin.Fourier org.gimp.GIMP.Plugin.FocusBlur org.gimp.GIMP.Plugin.BIMP

This worked fine.  gimp 3.2 was fine.  resynthesizer worked fine.  Weeks passed.  Many .xcf files were created.  And then I found out that while some of our users want the art precisely as we have created it, a different set want the same art with a larger canvas -- the whole think shifted 8 transparent pixels to the right and 44 transparent pixels down.  This seems to be a straight-forward job for a python plugin.  I've never made one but I do know how to program in python, so I figured that this would be ok.  The first thing I wanted to do was look at existing plugins to see how they worked.  And unfortunately, I could not find any.

The flatpak installation document mentioned "Note: if you install through flatpak, it may be necessary to point GIMP to the newly installed plugins locations, so it knows where to load them from. In GIMP: Edit - Preferences - Folders - Plugins and use a plus sign to add plugin folders of newly installed flatpaks."  But Edit - Preferences - Folders  is empty. Not only are there no Plug-ins, but also no Brushes, Palettes, Patterns etc either.  "Temporary Folder" and "Swap Folder" are the only things mentioned.  So no "adding plus signs" is possible.

flatpak list says:
 
Namn                              Program-ID                         Version        Gren        Installation
Mesa                              …g.freedesktop.Platform.GL.default 26.0.6         25.08       system
Mesa (Extra)                      …g.freedesktop.Platform.GL.default 26.0.6         25.08-extra system
Intel VAAPI driver                ….freedesktop.Platform.VAAPI.Intel                25.08       system
Codecs Extra Extension            …freedesktop.Platform.codecs-extra                25.08-extra system
GNU bildmanipuleringsprogram    org.gimp.GIMP                      3.2.4          stable      system
GNU bildmanipuleringsprogram    org.gimp.GIMP                      3.2.4          stable      user
BIMP                              org.gimp.GIMP.Plugin.BIMP          2.6            2-40        system
BIMP                              org.gimp.GIMP.Plugin.BIMP          2.6            2-40        user
FocusBlur                         org.gimp.GIMP.Plugin.FocusBlur     3.2.6          2-3.36      system
FocusBlur                         org.gimp.GIMP.Plugin.FocusBlur     3.2.6          2-40        user
Fourier                           org.gimp.GIMP.Plugin.Fourier       0.4.5          2-40        user
Fourier                           org.gimp.GIMP.Plugin.Fourier       0.4.5+gimp3rc1 3           system
G'MIC                             org.gimp.GIMP.Plugin.GMic          3.5.2          2-40        user
G'MIC                             org.gimp.GIMP.Plugin.GMic          3.7.6          3           system
GimpLensfun                       org.gimp.GIMP.Plugin.Lensfun       0.2.4          2-3.36      system
GimpLensfun                       org.gimp.GIMP.Plugin.Lensfun       0.2.4          2-40        user
LiquidRescale                     org.gimp.GIMP.Plugin.LiquidRescale 0.7.2          2-3.36      system
LiquidRescale                     org.gimp.GIMP.Plugin.LiquidRescale 0.7.2          2-40        user
Resynthesizer                     org.gimp.GIMP.Plugin.Resynthesizer 2.0.3          2-40        system
Resynthesizer                     org.gimp.GIMP.Plugin.Resynthesizer 2.0.3          2-40        user
Resynthesizer                     org.gimp.GIMP.Plugin.Resynthesizer 3.0.1          3           system
GNOME Application Platform versi… org.gnome.Platform                                50          system
Breeze GTK theme                  org.gtk.Gtk3theme.Breeze           6.7.0          3.22        system

....  I decided to experiment.  I made a file batch_add_borders.py and installed it in
/home/lac/.config/GIMP/3.2/plug-ins/ which is also empty.

Now when gimp starts it reports:
Skipping potential plug-in '/home/lac/.config/GIMP/3.2/plug-ins/batch_add_borders.py': plug-ins must be installed in subdirectories.

I don't know what this means; I thought I did exactly that by adding it to the plugins directory.

Can somebody explain what I should do now?

Thank you.

[rich2005]

First, your flatpak installation.  You seem to have a lot of old, possibly redundant installations there.
(1) is a typical installation, a Gimp 3.2.x and flatpak plugins that are version 3.  

(2) In Gimp Edit -> Preferences -> Folders (click to expand) -> Plug-ins  it shows the paths to the plugin folders.  You have found the only one you need ~/.config/GIMP/3.2/plug-ins

   

Quote:....  I decided to experiment.  I made a file batch_add_borders.py and installed it in
/home/lac/.config/GIMP/3.2/plug-ins/ which is also empty.

Now when gimp starts it reports:
Skipping potential plug-in '/home/lac/.config/GIMP/3.2/plug-ins/batch_add_borders.py': plug-ins must be installed in subdirectories.

About Gimp 3 plugins.  They can be binary like resynthesizer or python or script-fu  What ever type, they go in a folder with the same name as the plugin.  So batch_add_borders.py  goes in its own folder batch_add_borders without any extension and for linux the plugin has to be executable.
As examples (3) is the Batcher python plugin, complicated comes with lots of dependencies. (4) A simple script-fu plugin  but still has to go in its own folder.

   

[lac]

(07-05-2026, 07:47 AM)rich2005 Wrote: First, your flatpak installation.  You seem to have a lot of old, possibly redundant installations there.
(1) is a typical installation, a Gimp 3.2.x and flatpak plugins that are version 3.  

---

Thank you very much.  Moving the plugin to its own folder with the same name made things work.  Well, work better.  
The recommended way to clean up my unwanted flatpak GIMPs is to run
flatpak uninstall org.gimp.GIMP
(which will remove all of them)
and then install the one I want again with
fllatpak install flathub org.gimp.GIMP  ?

[rich2005]

(07-05-2026, 09:21 AM)lac Wrote: ...snip....  
The recommended way to clean up my unwanted flatpak GIMPs is to run
flatpak uninstall org.gimp.GIMP
(which will remove all of them)
and then install the one I want again with
fllatpak install flathub org.gimp.GIMP  ?

As this post https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.p...5#p2318151

flatpak uninstall --unused --delete-data might clean out the unused bits

I am not a lover of flatpak. There might be alternatives depending on your linux distro.
For example I use kubuntu 24.04 and Gimp 3.2.x from a PPA.

[lac]

I think I need to use flatpak because I need resynthesizer which hasn't been ported to python-3 yet, thus I need the python-2
runtime which debian doesn't support as a package any longer, because python-2 support has gone away. If this is wrong, do let
me know; I would be pleased to drop flatpak and just run the regular debian gimp package.

[rich2005]

Again it all depends on your linux version.

I use kubuntu 24.04 and Mint 22.3 (laptops) and compile my own which I posted here: https://www.gimp-forum.net/Thread-Gimp3-...favourites

A more recent ubuntu 26.04 and you can get a gmic_gimp_qt plugin from http://www.gmic.eu That has inpaint filters that work much the same as resynthesizer.

If using fedora or arch or some other distro, well yes you might have to use a flatpack or find some nice person to provide resynthesizer.

Why does bootchk advise flatpak.
Quote: The Resynthesizer is a third-party plugin. The maintainers of this repository do not generally build and distribute the Resynthesizer plugin.

Too much hassle - code is provided. You can compile it

[lac]

I am using debian testing. and Thank You again for all the help.

[phobby]

Based on the picture #2, it looks like paths are inserted when flatpaks are installed. Is this correct?
I installed GIMP from the Fedora repository and it works fine. I installed G'MIC-QT from a repository and it works fine and it installed a path.
All flatpak installations of plug-ins do not appear in the menus and no paths are added by the install process to GIMP. Is this normal?

GIMP can be installed as a flatpak rather than from the Fedora repository. Does that make a difference to the installation process of plug-ins as flatpaks? Does this imply that I would need to compile each plug-in I needed in order to get them to work with GIMP or that GIMP must have been installed as a flatpak to get the flatpaks to install properly.

[rich2005]

(07-23-2026, 08:14 AM)phobby Wrote: Based on the picture #2, it looks like paths are inserted when flatpaks are installed. Is this correct?

All good questions. but did you get AI to write it? Looks a bit spammy.

Somewhere in the flatpack there is a gimprc template which creates all sorts of things. It contains a section like this, to set the paths you see in "preferences".

Code:

# Sets the plug-in search path.  This is a colon-separated list of folders to
# search.
#
# (plug-in-path "${gimp_dir}/plug-ins:${gimp_plug_in_dir}/plug-ins")

Quote:I installed GIMP from the Fedora repository and it works fine. I installed G'MIC-QT from a repository and it works fine and it installed a path.
All flatpak installations of plug-ins do not appear in the menus and no paths are added by the install process to GIMP.  Is this normal?

The flatpak version has a place, an older linux might only have a Gimp 2.10 in its repo and a flatpak is an alternative for a newer Gimp. It is self contained (contains its own dependencies) and sandboxed. Install a flatpak plugin and that gets installed in the flatpak. From memory I think something like gmic does add a path, Gmic of course depends on QT so that has to come with the flatpak package as well.

Quote:GIMP can be installed as a flatpak rather than from the Fedora repository. Does that make a difference to the installation process of plug-ins as flatpaks?  Does this imply that I would need to compile each plug-in I needed in order to get them to work with GIMP or that GIMP must have been installed as a flatpak to get the flatpaks to install properly.

Why install a flatpak Gimp 3 when you can get a supported package from the Fedora repo? It might be just for compiled plugins, (gmic, resynth, FFT) and you stick with flatpak-only. For a regular installation, if not in the repo, you might have to compile from code and you will not do that using a flatpak. You need a gimp...devel package. Python or script-fu plugins are of course more "universal" and generally work whichever version you use.

[phobby]

I never use AI, just HI. Did a lot of technical writing over the years and have pretty good grammar skills. Thanks for the complement, I think...

Just asking about Flatpak GIMP. I don't want to change from the repo installation since it stays supported during updates. Just curious how it works. If I need to compile the plug-ins, then I will to get them to work. Just need to find the source files and get to it.

Thanks