Hello, I made this thread to encourage the community to preserve GIMP 2.10 so it will run on future Linux distros long after GIMP 3 is released.

Let us assume GIMP 2.10.38 / GEGL 0.4.48 is the last version of GIMP 2.10 ever and the year is 2026 with GIMP 3.2. Will GIMP 2.10 still be usable on Linux? I hope so... We (GIMP's community) knows for sure that the last release of GIMP 2.10 will always work on Windows and Mac due to backward compatibility via grabbing an old .exe/.dmg but on Linux backward compatibility is very difficult. Once GIMP 3 is released python2 and gtk2 will be dropped from major Linux distro repos and flathub will remove old versions of GIMP. This always happens...

This means that getting GIMP 2.10 to run on Linux several years from now may be extremely difficult outside of virtual machines. The solution to this problem is Flatpak but not Flathub. GIMP's community will have to make a private flatpak repo of GIMP 2.10.38 that ships with python2, gtk2 and GEGL 0.4.48. If not GIMP 2.10 will never work on Linux again without extreme tinkering or virtual box. A few years from now GIMP 2.10 will be inaccessible on Linux without third party flatpak repos.

Lastly, I have a personal reason to keep GIMP 2.10 working forever on Linux. Please make sure we never lose GIMP 2.10
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Well you got my vote, personally I don't have problems with older versions. I never know what's new anyways.

Very probably, and in my opinion most Gimp users for their general editing do not need the latest cutting edge version. Although, have to confess, I do use kubuntu 24.04 / Gimp 2.10.38 (PPA+appimage python2)

I still keep a few old appimages around, but as you remarked, increasingly difficult to get them running