I'm trying to get autotrace installed on the linux system. My aim is to keep it symmetrical with the Windows system at the studio, which now has autotrace, potrace to vectorize scanned images, delineate to serve as a GUI for both, and the latest Java Runtime environment to make delineate work. It's all part of my attempts to learn vector art.
On windows, the only thing that gave me any pain was that the makers of delineate vastly overestimated Windows XP's intelligence in the field of reading its own file paths. The only way to get the JRE to work was to set the environment variable like this: C:\progra~1\java\jre.whateveritwas, and replace all forward slashes in the delineate.bat file with backslashes. It was an annoyance but I know Windows' quirks well enough to solve it myself. It's working nicely now, and it was worth it to be able to turn PNG images into SVG without too much fuss and with previews and buttons and all that stuff.
With autotrace on linux though, there's only one Red Hat 7.2 binary file available that might not be suitable for my SuSE 9.0 system at all. So I decided "OK, I'll get the source and compile. People always tell me it's easy, right?" -- blocking out the nightmare scenario that invariably takes place when I actually try this in the real world. You see, compiling programs on linux is pretty easy, if, and only if:
- You do it regularly so you don't forget the ritual;
- You know your system inside out so you can recognise and troubleshoot problems that may occur.
- You succesfully keep your system up to date so you don't get any library dependency problems;
In other words, it's easy for a professional system administrator or a dedicated computer geek. For the rest of us, it gets complicated pretty quickly.
Right now, I'm looking at the many messages spat out by ./configure and make to determine what went wrong the first time. I assume that these messages:
libtool: link: cannot find the library `/usr/lib/libfreetype.la'
make[1]: *** [autotrace] Error 1
make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/bin/autotrace-0.31.1'
make: *** [all] Error 2
from make are the actual errors, because the word "Error" appears in close proximity to the meaningful parts of the messages, although why autotrace should need libfreetype is beyond me.
These are my freetype libs:
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 20 2003-11-14 01:14 libfreetype.so.6 -> libfreetype.so.6.3.3 -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 394821 2003-09-23 18:46 libfreetype.so.6.3.3
I just know that when I look at the freetype library that I need, I'll find that I have to compile that one too, and that that compile will fail because I need another library for it. Considering that I don't get paid for this sort of thing and don't particularly enjoy it, I'm sort of fretting over whether to continue or not....
Comments (9)
Hi Reinder!
See if you have freetype-devel installed. This is a very common error with redhat systems.
rpm -qa | grep freetype
If you're missing freetype-devel then get it from rpmfind.net and install the package for your system. You should have no problem building then. It might be freetype2-devel... just make sure you get the devel that matches the freetype you have installed.
Let me know how it goes. :)
Posted by Aric | July 4, 2004 11:10 PM
Posted on July 4, 2004 23:10
Oh, Duh!
You might also try this. When you unpack the source tree, cd into it. Look and see if there's a file with the extension .spec
If there is, you can build your own RPM for this package. E-mail me if you want more information, I'm happy to help.
- Aric C.
www.HOSERS.org
Posted by Aric | July 4, 2004 11:12 PM
Posted on July 4, 2004 23:12
Oooh... so many rpms to choose from! I don't find any specifically for SuSE though.. which do you reckon should be safe?
Posted by reinder | July 4, 2004 11:17 PM
Posted on July 4, 2004 23:17
What version of suse?
If it's SuSE 9.1 get this:
ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i386/9.1/suse/i586/freetype2-devel-2.1.7-53.i586.rpm
Posted by Aric | July 4, 2004 11:28 PM
Posted on July 4, 2004 23:28
And you'll want the freetype2 package that matches, if you don't already have it, obviously. Then ./compile and make should work. OR you can always attempt to rebuild the rpm from spec (autotrace does provide a spec file, I checked).
Posted by Aric | July 4, 2004 11:30 PM
Posted on July 4, 2004 23:30
Sorry, ./configure
:P No way to edit posts here and I really should proofread these before hitting "post"
Posted by Aric | July 4, 2004 11:31 PM
Posted on July 4, 2004 23:31
I've found the correct freetype-devel library for SuSE 9.0 by doing some URL-guessing on SuSE's ftp site. I installed it, without really checking if it was an exact match with the existing user library. I'll do that in a jiffy.Anyway, I got no errors from that. Compiling still doesn't work though.
Well, now I'm getting these errors from make:
--
collect2: ld returned 1 exit status
make[1]: *** [autotrace] Error 1
make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/bin/autotrace-0.31.1'
make: *** [all] Error 2
--
Not sure what that means, or even how to find out...
Posted by reinder | July 5, 2004 6:04 PM
Posted on July 5, 2004 18:04
LD problems are typically library issues. What lines came bfore the collect2: ld line?
Posted by Aric | July 10, 2004 12:01 AM
Posted on July 10, 2004 00:01
I don't remember at this point. I found an RPM to install from and took the path of least resistance. Thanks, though!
Posted by reinder | July 10, 2004 12:04 AM
Posted on July 10, 2004 00:04