I upgraded to gimp-2.8-RC1 on my normal install.
I would have kept it for daily use but it proved to be too unstable.
https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=645345 (scroll down to the end)
So I deleted it and re-installed 2.6.12 again.
For some operations I reboot into my experimental install with 2.8-RC1.
Gerard.

Only one GIMP plugin crashed with 2.8 rc1 Gerald (but not GIMP itself; believe it was the enhanced details plugin but not sure). I ended the plugin and re-ran the plugin without incident. GIMP itself has not crashed yet (but even GIMP 2.6.x would sometimes goe hours or days without a lockout issue, so the verdict is still out). I did go ahead and re-installed 2.6.12 since, as you know, 2.8 rc1 uninstalled any 2.x version of GIMP. Both working fine for the most part. Only issues I've seen so far is tif export error, jpeg size indicator stuck at 1.3G (so you won't know the size of your exported jpeg, but the jpeg will save properly), and also the user filter won't save the guf location (so everytime you use the user filter, you have to point to the guf directory; a pain that I don't think will ever get patched. Don't use this filter that often anyway and am just happy this filter still works). All and all, I'm pretty happy with 2.8 rc1, but the issues will have to be fixed related to GIMP itself, but I suspect it will get quickly fixed.

2.8 replaced 2.6.11 and everything is still there like GAP which is the only reason i kept 2.6 around
so far the only thing i'm not seeing in 2.8 is the layer effects like in Parthas 2.7 version, anyone know why

I had to put my layer effects in separately in 2.6.11
http://registry.gimp.org/node/186

Thanks Molly..just added them

https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=645345
Scroll down to Michael Natterer's comment of 2012-04-11.
Gerard.

I'm not seeing the rectangular select tool slow at least not with a small image or even a medium large one Gerard. I didn't download rc1 until a few days after the initial release date and maybe they might have added a few patches since I saw somewhere where they discussed that 2.8 had to be completely removed before re-installed a newer rc1 if you will. Thought that was weird and hope there's not 2 rc1s floating out in the wild. Still, I do have relatively large amounts of RAM (6Gs) as well as running a 64-bit version of GIMP now so it might be that that prevents the selection slowdown issue.

Glad to see that the tiff situation has it's own bugzilla: https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=673729

Well it's been years since I filed a bugzilla report since the last time I did so, I got reemed. lol

It's the jpeg save dialogue preview size issue.

https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=673968

I'll predict you won't get reemed this time, just told that it's a duplicate of an existing bug: https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=669818

Kevin

i found it slow, the previous 2.7 seems faster.