This document contains instructions how to build the FreeType library on non-Unix systems with the help of GNU Make. Note that if you are running Cygwin or MSys in Windows, you should follow the instructions in the file INSTALL.UNX instead. FreeType 2 includes a powerful and flexible build system that allows you to easily compile it on a great variety of platforms from the command line. To do so, just follow these simple instructions: 1. Install GNU Make ------------------- Because GNU Make is the only Make tool supported to compile FreeType 2, you should install it on your machine. The FreeType 2 build system relies on many features special to GNU Make -- trying to build the library with any other Make tool will *fail*. NEARLY ALL OTHER MAKE TOOLS WILL FAIL, INCLUDING "BSD MAKE", SO REALLY INSTALL A RECENT VERSION OF GNU MAKE ON YOUR SYSTEM! Note that make++, a make tool written in Perl, supports enough features of GNU make to compile FreeType. See http://makepp.sourceforge.net for more information. Make sure that you are invoking GNU Make from the command line, by typing something like: make -v to display its version number. VERSION 3.78.1 OR NEWER IS NEEDED! 2. Invoke 'make' ---------------- Go to the root directory of FreeType 2, then simply invoke GNU Make from the command line. This will launch the FreeType 2 host platform detection routines. A summary will be displayed, for example, on Win32: ============================================================== FreeType build system -- automatic system detection The following settings are used: platform win32 compiler gcc configuration directory ./builds/win32 configuration rules ./builds/win32/w32-gcc.mk If this does not correspond to your system or settings please remove the file 'config.mk' from this directory then read the INSTALL file for help. Otherwise, simply type 'make' again to build the library. ============================================================= If the detected settings correspond to your platform and compiler, skip to step 5. Note that if your platform is completely alien to the build system, the detected platform will be 'ansi'. 3. Configure the build system for a different compiler ------------------------------------------------------ If the build system correctly detected your platform, but you want to use a different compiler than the one specified in the summary (for most platforms, gcc is the defaut compiler), invoke GNU Make with make setup Examples: to use Visual C++ on Win32, type: "make setup visualc" to use Borland C++ on Win32, type "make setup bcc32" to use Watcom C++ on Win32, type "make setup watcom" to use Intel C++ on Win32, type "make setup intelc" to use LCC-Win32 on Win32, type: "make setup lcc" to use Watcom C++ on OS/2, type "make setup watcom" to use VisualAge C++ on OS/2, type "make setup visualage" The name to use is platform-dependent. The list of available compilers for your system is available in the file `builds//detect.mk' If you are satisfied by the new configuration summary, skip to step 5. 4. Configure the build system for an unknown platform/compiler -------------------------------------------------------------- The auto-detection/setup phase of the build system copies a file to the current directory under the name `config.mk'. For example, on OS/2+gcc, it would simply copy `builds/os2/os2-gcc.mk' to `./config.mk'. If for some reason your platform isn't correctly detected, copy manually the configuration sub-makefile to `./config.mk' and go to step 5. Note that this file is a sub-Makefile used to specify Make variables for compiler and linker invocation during the build. You can easily create your own version from one of the existing configuration files, then copy it to the current directory under the name `./config.mk'. 5. Build the library -------------------- The auto-detection/setup phase should have copied a file in the current directory, called `./config.mk'. This file contains definitions of various Make variables used to invoke the compiler and linker during the build. To launch the build, simply invoke GNU Make again: The top Makefile will detect the configuration file and run the build with it. Final note The build system builds a statically linked library of the font engine in the "objs" directory. It does _not_ support the build of DLLs on Windows and OS/2. If you need these, you have to either use a IDE-specific project file, or follow the instructions in "INSTALL.ANY" to create your own Makefiles. --- end of INSTALL.GNU ---