Hello. I'm trying to build Inkscape 0.91 on Debian 7 (Wheezy). When I run ./configure I'm getting the error:



I have libfreetype6 installed on my system but can't find freetype-config anywhere.

I can run Inkscape 0.48 on my system, and am enjoying that so much that I wanted to install the latest version.

install freetype (2.4.9-1.1+deb7u2) or alike

Thanks for your reply V1nce. I installed freetype2-demos (2.4.9-1.1+deb7u2) from Synaptic, but when I ran ./configure I got exactly the same error message as in my original post - error: Cannot find freetype-config

sorry it's libfreetype6-dev you need to install

Thank you V1nce - your advice resolved that issue!

However, I just ran ./configure again and got a load more issues:
configure: error: Package requirements (bdw-gc >= 7.1
cairo >= 1.10
cairomm-1.0 >= 1.9.8
glib-2.0 >= 2.28
glibmm-2.4 >= 2.28
giomm-2.4
gsl
gthread-2.0 >= 2.0
libpng >= 1.2
libxml-2.0 >= 2.6.11
libxslt >= 1.0.15
pango >= 1.24
pangoft2 >= 1.24
sigc++-2.0 >= 2.0.12
) were not met:

No package 'bdw-gc' found
No package 'cairo' found
No package 'cairomm-1.0' found
No package 'glib-2.0' found
No package 'glibmm-2.4' found
No package 'giomm-2.4' found
No package 'gsl' found
No package 'gthread-2.0' found
No package 'libpng' found
No package 'libxml-2.0' found
No package 'libxslt' found
No package 'pango' found
No package 'pangoft2' found
No package 'sigc++-2.0' found

I'm not experienced at building from source, so I don't know how difficult it will be to resolve all those others. For example, a search in Synaptic for bdw-gc returned zero results. Perhaps it isn't going to be possible to get the latest version of Inkscape working?

Thanks again for your help.

There are instructions somewhere for compiling Inkscape. I guess it's on the wiki, but maybe is on the website too. I'll try to find.

You could use an installer, instead of building/compiling yourself, right?

Edit
On this page, about halfway down, are links to instructions and resources.

Thanks for your reply Brynn. Using an installer for the latest version of Inkscape isn't really possible on my system - GNU Linux Debian 7 (Wheezy) - unless you know of a deb that will work? There is a package for an older version of Inkscape in Debian 7, but I like Inkscape so much that I want to use it as my only vector graphics program, and I thought it would be a good idea to have the most current version (maybe I was wrong!).

Sorry, but I can't see a link in your reply to the instructions page.

Oh sorry, I forgot the link.

https://inkscape.org/en/download/

I'm not familiar with Linux. I guess it sounds like there's some reason why Inkscape can't be installed any other way.

There are debs for different Ubuntu versions in the ppa (https://launchpad.net/~inkscape.dev/+ar ... ntu/stable), but of course you can't be sure they will work on Debian.

Oh - here's someone who has compiled it: http://www.jesusda.com/blog/index.php?i ... ion-debian
And here they say there's a build in testing: http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions ... rom-source

So you could just temporarily add testing to your sources, install 0.91, then remove it from the sources list again.

Thanks Moini - very useful advice and links. I'll have a look at the possibilities. Interesting thought to install from Debian Testing - I wonder whether that would destroy the working version of Inkscape I currently have (0.48). One of the reasons I was looking into building from source is I could keep the existing version as well. Thinking about it, I'd be interested in people's opinions of whether the upgrade from .48 to .91 brings many major benefits, or if the core functionality is similar?

I wonder whether that would destroy the working version of Inkscape I currently have (0.48)

Yes, it would (unless you install in a container/VM/chroot environment). Keep a copy of your current preferences file, too, in case you want to uninstall 0.91 and reinstall 0.48 - I don't know if they would be backwards compatible.

Look into the release notes for a list of changes:
http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php ... notes/0.91

Basic functionality is the same (if you use 0.48.5, which is a very stable / very low-bug release, then stability is worse / bug amount is higher in 0.91, imho), but there are also some fun new features (PowerStroke, arrange on a circle, measure, symbol dialog, keyboard shortcut editor,... and bug fixes) that make me prefer 0.91.

Brilliant advice Moini - thanks very much for your help. Very impressed both with Inkscape and the support here.

If you want to explore the chroot approach, take a look at this thread as a starting point: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=19222

As for satisfying dependencies, you might make some progress by ensuring that the source repositories and a 0.91 PPA are enabled, then using the "build-dep" option of apt-get to install the build dependencies for the 0.91 version. Note that I haven't tried that approach myself, but it might help to fulfil some of your missing dependencies (unless there are loads of Ubuntu-specific ones).

(I've also made a short guide for chroot - mainly for myself, for being able to run the dev version to look up translation strings in their natural habitat:
https://inkscape.org/en/gallery/item/6641/ )

Wow! Amazing level of help here.

Thanks Moini and Xav. I'll take at those links when I get some time later.