slackware current Gimp Mon May 14 19:48:52 UTC 2018
 

No fonts on some buttons.
seems white is needed

Not sure if this will solve your issue, but you can change the theme in gimp by going to 'Edit --> Preferences --> Interface --> Theme'. Personally I much prefer using the system theme instead of the new default dark theme.

yes system theme thanks I figured it out. seems the developer has dark fonts on dark textures it is a xml schema issue.
set to default system theme all is well.

Thanks orbea.

Much better now.

And when I also changed [Edit]->[Preferences]->[Icon Theme] to Legacy, it is much MUCH better now :)

-- kjh