GIF Animator Needed

[Scarletdown <gsutton9503@wavecable.com>]

I need help finding a program to create animated GIFs, preferably 
something that works similar to Jasc Animation Shop (create an empty 
animation and insert your frames, etc.)  I was hoping GIMP would work 
for this.  However, I discovered that GIMP 2.0 is apparently unable to 
save in GIF format, and I am unable to figure out how to install the 
animation plugin I recently downloaded as well (animate_cells, placed in 
~/.gimp-2.0/plugins...I see nothing about it in any of GIMP's menus, and 
this was after closing and restarting GIMP).

Anyway, can someone please recommend a usable GIF animator, preferably 
one installable via apt-get?  Or failing that, please explain how to 
properly install this GIMP plugin, since there does not seem to be any 
information on the GIMP site about how to do this?

Thanks.