FWIW, GIMP 2.6's text tool is solidly mediocre. I stopped updating because 2.8 broke Ctrl-S (vocally on purpose), so it wouldn't surprise me if they also ruined

FWIW, GIMP 2.6's text tool is solidly mediocre. I stopped updating because 2.8 broke Ctrl-S (vocally on purpose), so it wouldn't surprise me if they also ruined text compositions. Contra zozbot234, it is very unlikely upgrading to Debian 10 will improve anything.