On this system I get the 'Edge' update from otto-kesselgulasch/gimp-edge/ubuntu. So I've got Gimp 2.9.7.
Looking at Preferences>System Resources I see that 'OpenCL' is ticked under hardware acceleration. Recently, I spent a bit of time getting OpenCL working on this system for another graphics program. OpenCL shares the processing work with the graphics card(s) GPU's and speeds-up rendering. Great to have for any animation tasks.

My toolbox looked sort of dull until I ticked 'show foreground and background color' under Preferences>Interface>Toolbox. Highly recommended.
I found I was unable to open XCF's made with Gimp 2.9 in Gimp 2.8. Apparently this has happened before with newer versions of Gimp.
Not to worry, I just copy and paste the entire .gimp-2.8 folder which gives me all my installed scripts and plugins. You can still do that in 2.9 except now the scripts go in homedir/.config/GIMP/2.9/scripts. Plugins go in homedir/.config/GIMP/2.9/plugins.
After that I had all my favorites available.

For me the best way to get to know something is to use it. I'm looking forward to getting to know Gimp 2.9 a lot better.
I'm happy with this version of Gimp because I find it faster and I like the interface. My solution to many of the open-source issues is to have other systems with earlier versions to fall back to and that I know well. It works for me.

I use a 'portable' (appimage) Gimp 2.9.7 with Kubuntu so I have both Gimp 2.8 and Gimp 2.9 available.

Gimp 2.9.7 is a development version and there can be serious bugs coming-and-going all the time. The otto-kesselgulasch gimp-edge PPA had a nasty one about a week or so ago, that broke the installation. Fixed by the next day but a reminder what development means.

Onto saving, You can have .xcf files that are usable by Gimp 2.8 but you do need to keep to legacy modes. A comparison





Run Gimp with the --pdb-compat-mode=on switch to suppress those deprecated procedure messages.



When Gimp 2.10 comes along it will be much different from Gimp 2.8 Lots of Gimp users will get a surprise.

I have tried Gimp 2.9.7. Surprise is the word. Horrible is a better word. The default theme is awful and confusing. I have enough trouble with icons but 2.9.7 is indecipherable.

rich2005 said,

Thanks rich, it's amazing how many scripts and plugins have now got deprecated Gimp calls.
It's up to the authors to update them and re-publish newer versions. We were fortunate to have the scripts in the first place so I'm guessing some will never get updated. Editing one or two locally is not that hard and is a good way to learn some coding.

I havn't used appimage on linux yet but it will only get more use. Travis also looks pretty good and it's an amazing way to publish software. How long before Windows is added as another OS and the build process for 10 platforms becomes automated?

G'day Kimba, I like 'On Earth,specifically Queensland,Australia'. I just realised that the Earth is our canvas for everything else. It's good to keep it in perspective.