How to update gutsy with GIMP from hardy?

[Tommy Trussell]

On Dec 7, 2007 8:51 PM, Tom Bamford <tom at entrepreneuria.co.uk> wrote:
> Kent Paul Dolan wrote:
> > Hardy, which isn't to be released for another more
> > than four months, has what the GIMP developers think
> > is the current GIMP, version 2.4.2, listed in its
> > packages web page.
> >
> > Is there a way to tell gutsy to upgrade to the hardy
> > release? Is it safe to do so?
> >
> > Is there a FAQ page I should be reading that
> > explains how to keep up to date with individual
> > package development when gutsy isn't upgrading to
> > the "most current" releases "in real time"?
> >
> > Or, am I stuck with waiting until April 2008 to use
> > the latest greatest GIMP release?

> I don't know about Gimp specifically, but my experience of trying to get
> packages from newer Ubuntu releases has been rough. The problem I've had
> on every occasion was the newer package having unsolved dependancies,
> mostly libs and other supporting packages that were too old. The one
> occasion I forced a newer version of a common library left my packaging
> system in a broken state.
>
> However, if you want to get the latest version you can download it from
> http://packages.ubuntu.com and install it manually

There IS an official process for running newer versions in an older
Ubuntu -- it's called "Backports"

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UbuntuBackports

In many cases you can backport the package yourself. If you follow the
procedure and still run into a dependency issue, it's relatively
straightforward to revert to the distribution version. The prevu
utility makes the process easy for even a non-programmer.