Missing /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libfreetype.la file

[Martin D. Weinberg]

This file disappeared from 19.10 dev package. Without the *.la file, libtool fails to configure libraries with GTK dependencies.

My work around was to grab the file from 18.04 and change the metadata for the current library versions. That allowed me to successfully compile my package with GTK dependencies.

Perhaps there is some libtool/autoconf magic that I do not understand here? Please do tell me how to address this this issue if I am misunderstanding the need for the *.la file. Thanks.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 19.10
Package: libfreetype6-dev 2.9.1-4
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 5.3.0-40.32-generic 5.3.18
Uname: Linux 5.3.0-40-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.20.11-0ubuntu8.5
Architecture: amd64
CurrentDesktop: ubuntu:GNOME
Date: Fri Mar 6 10:18:10 2020
EcryptfsInUse: Yes
InstallationDate: Installed on 2018-03-12 (725 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 18.04 LTS "Bionic Beaver" - Alpha amd64 (20180114)
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: freetype
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to eoan on 2019-12-31 (65 days ago)

[Hugh McMaster (hmcmaster)]

libfreetype.la has not been packaged in libfreetype-dev since release 2.8.1-2 in February 2018. In any case, you shouldn't need it to link against FreeType 2.

Looking at your Dependencies list, you're only including shared libraries needed to run programs using FreeType, not linking against it.

If this is no longer an issue, I'll close this bug as invalid.

[Gwyneth Llewelyn (gwyneth-llewelyn)]

Unfortunately, when trying to get ImageMagick 7 + php-imagick to work on Ubuntu 20.04.1 LTS, one of the steps of the compilation requires /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libfreetype.la.

I guess that for some arcane reason, ImageMagick 7 won't be supported until (hopefully) groovy is out, but that doesn't mean that some of us don't need it *now*. ImageMagick 7 was released in April 2016 — that's well over four years now — has had 6688 commits to GitHub and 227 releases as of today, so it's definitely very robust and mature code, and supported by almost every other distribution I'm aware of (including macOS via Homebrew!), so I hardly understand why it has been absent from Ubuntu for so long. Still, I guess that's the decision of someone else, and the point is that we have no other option than to compile it from sources — and that inevitably means dealing with things such as libfreetype.la to be present in the system...

[Hugh McMaster (hmcmaster)]

I just built ImageMagick 7.0.10 from the latest upstream git source without any issues.

I also don't have freetype's .la file on my system, but as I said, it's not needed.

I'm building on Debian Sid, so there's a slight difference in packages. I'll spin up a Ubuntu 20.04 VM and try building again to make sure this isn't the difference.

Are you sure the issue isn't with php-imagick?

[Hugh McMaster (hmcmaster)]

Please provide the commands you use to compile and encounter the FreeType linking issue, so I can see what's going on.

[Hugh McMaster (hmcmaster)]

I was able to compile ImaageMagick from the latest upstream git source without any issues on Ubuntu 20.04.