Question

I am running a script-fu macro using GIMP from the command line. However, it is quite slow to startup and run – about 20-25 seconds. I think a lot of this time is spent on startup – loading all the plugins and such. What are some ways to optimize GIMP on the CL? Is there any way to keep it always running?

Answer 1

Some promising options from the GIMP docs (some of which you may already be using):

–no-interface: Run without a user interface.
–no-data: Do not load patterns, gradients, palettes, or brushes. Often useful in non-interactive situations where start-up time is to be minimized.
–no-fonts: Do not load any fonts. This is useful to load GIMP faster for scripts that do not use fonts, or to find problems related to malformed fonts that hang GIMP.
–no-splash: Do not show the splash screen while starting.

The GIMP FAQ:

The GIMP takes too long to load – how can I speed it up?

The main things are to make sure you are running at least version 1.0, and make sure you compiled with optimization on, debugging turned off, and the shared memory and X shared memory options turned on.

Or, buy a faster system with more memory. 8^)

This question on SuperUser addresses slow GIMP startup time in general and recommends:

• Rebuild the font cache file by deleting C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\.fonts-cache1 and then opening GIMP.
• Check for slow-loading plugins by starting up with --verbose and seeing where it hangs. Then remove problematic plugins by renaming them in C:\Program Files\GIMP-2.0\lib\gimp\<version>\plug-ins. Alternately, remove all plugins by renaming the whole plugins folder.