It's 1996 All over Again on the New GIMP 0.54 Flatpak
A new Flatpak release of GIMP 0.54, a version from 1996, has been packaged for modern Linux systems, allowing users to experience the early days of the image editor. The package is available on Flathub and offers a nostalgic look at GIMP's original interface and features.
Background
- GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) is a free, open-source image editor often compared to Adobe Photoshop. Version 0.54 is a very old, unstable pre-release from 1996, not a modern release.
- The article (published in 2026) satirizes a hypothetical scenario where someone packages that ancient 1996 version as a Flatpak. Flatpak is a modern, sandboxed software distribution system for Linux that auto-updates and handles dependencies—the exact opposite of how software worked in 1996.
- The joke is that running GIMP 0.54 from 1996 inside a cutting-edge 2026 Flatpak is absurd: you get the worst of both worlds (ancient, crash-prone software with modern packaging headaches) and miss the point of both retro computing and modern deployment.
- It's a commentary on the tendency to package anything and everything as a Flatpak without considering whether it makes sense, and on the Linux community's occasional nostalgia obsession.