System prerequisites for Perl/Tk on Linux

Of course a C compiler (e.g. gcc) and a make tool (e.g. GNU make)
needs to be installed. Additionally, some libraries and include files
are required:

Debian, Ubuntu:

The following system packages should be installed:

    libx11-dev (minimal requirement for basic compilation of Perl/Tk)
    libfreetype6-dev libxft-dev (for freetype support, XFT=1)
    libpng-dev libz-dev (for using system library for Tk::PNG)
    libjpeg-dev (for using system library for Tk::JPEG)

CentOS, RedHat, Fedora:

The following system packages should be installed:

    libX11-devel (minimal requirement for basic compilation of Perl/Tk)
    libXft-devel (for freetype support, XFT=1)
    libpng-devel zlib-devel (for using system library for Tk::PNG)
    libjpeg-devel (for using system library for Tk::JPEG)

With all these requirements, building Perl/Tk is straightforward:

    perl Makefile.PL
    make
    make test
    make install

XFT (freetype support) is enabled by default if the system
prerequisites are met (see above). To explicitely turn it off, use

    perl Makefile.PL XFT=0

It's recommended to install system's libpng, zlib, and libjpeg first.
Otherwise the bundled (and usually older) versions of libpng, zlib,
and libjpeg are used.

On some systems the default /etc/fonts/fonts.conf does not include
traditional X11 fonts by default (seen on a CentOS 6.4 installation,
probably also the case for the equivalent RedHat version). If you need
traditional X11 fonts (adobe-courier, adobe-helvetica, adobe-times
etc.), then there are some options:

* Provide a file /etc/fonts/local.conf with appropriate <dir>
  elements, e.g.

    <fontconfig>
      <dir>/usr/share/X11/fonts</dir>
    </fontconfig>

  This change would be global for all users.

* Create a user-specific configuration file in ~/.fonts.conf with the
  same content.

* Copy or symlink the directories with the X11 fonts into ~/.fonts
  (for a user only) or a global font directory like
  /usr/local/share/fonts.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Older instructions follow

These days perl/Tk is developed on Linux so things should work.
Nick uses SuSE Distributions, currently using SuSE 9.0.
All SuSE's /usr/bin/perl (perl >= perl5.8.0) should work.
SuSE's fontconfig is fine for building with XFT=1, but
there are some dodgy TrueType fonts in its set.

RedHat is more variable. Nick uses this version under RedHat7.* and
RedHat9.0 at work. RedHat9.0 will build with XFT=1 but scalable
fonts installed by default are limited.

Main snag on RedHat is that /usr/bin/perl tends to be a RedHat
patched version rather than an approved perl release. Its 5.8.0 has
bugs which mean that it is worse that official perl5.8.0 in UTF-8
locales - but UTF-8 locales are default on RedHat :-(

Nick has installed this version with RedHat's perl on RedHat9.
BUT there are a lot of reports that it doesn't work. If the problem
hits you try this:

1. Delete the unpacked version that had trouble - the bug mangles
   some files.

2. Change to a non UTF-8 locale. i.e.
   echo $LANG            # find out what your locale is
   export LANG=en_GB     # what above printed but without UTF-8 bit

3. tar xzf Tk804.026.tar.gz  # re-extract
   cd Tk804.026

4. perl Makefile.PL          # normal build
   make
   make test

   (Steps 3 & 4 can be done using CPAN module provided you stay
    in non-UTF-8 locale.)

5. Optionally:
   export LANG=en_GB.UTF-8 # or original from step 2
   make test               # prove it works in the locale

6. make install

Or just get perl5.8.3 kit from CPAN and build a real perl.


Other issues are that distributions vary in the fonts they come
with and window managers vary by user AND distribution.
So a t/entry.t and t/listbox.t in particular (which are new tests
compared to Tk800 series) sometimes fail a few subtests.
Sometimes when run like:

  perl -Mblib t/entry.t

they will pass :-(

Nick Ing-Simmons 2004/03/18