Building ImageMagick 6.3.8 from source

Posted by John
on Sunday, 02 March 2008

Because Ubuntu 7.10 repositories don't have the latest version of ImageMagick, stopping you install the latest RMagick Ruby Gem; here's a guide to help you build it from source.

What had Gone Before

Before all this, I had installed the old version of ImageMagick by,

sudo apt-get install imagemagick
sudo apt-get install libmagick9-dev

So as you know before you start.

Remove ImageMagick

First off you're gonna have to remove your old copy of ImageMagick...

sudo apt-get remove imagemagick

Building & Installing ImageMagick 6.3.8

Now we're going to get the latest source files for ImageMagick and configure them correctly.

wget ftp://ftp.imagemagick.org/pub/ImageMagick/ImageMagick-6.3.8-11.tar.gz
tar xvvzf ImageMagick-6.3.8-11.tar.gz
cd ImageMagick-6.3.8-11

Now we're in the source directory, G

./configure --prefix=/usr

Excellent, let's build...

sudo make

This will take a while, you may get a few warning pop up but hopefully no show-stoppers; afterwards lets install...

sudo make install

Rmagick Gem

And finally the latest RMagick Gem..

sudo gem install rmagick

If this still fails, you can install the old gem with..

sudo gem install rmagick -v=1.15.12

But fingers crossed let hope the new one works

Did it work?

Yes it all installed, and I've now got the RMagick 2.2.2 gem running on Ubuntu 7.10

So, What does it support?

Simple to find out, run the command below to see what version of ImageMagick you've got and what it can support.

identify -list format

Installing SVN via MacPorts

Posted by John
on Wednesday, 23 January 2008

Following on from my previous article concerning using MacPorts to install system software easily on your Mac, in this article I'll guide you thru install Subversion and all it's dependencies under Apple's Leopard O/S.

Update MacPorts

First off you don't have to install MacPorts with Leopard as it comes pre-installed, but you do need to update it.

So in Terminal run...

sudo port -v selfupdate

Perfect that should update the stock 1.5 build to the latest 1.6 release.

SVN Dependencies

Now to installing Subversion's dependencies, without these Subversion will not build. So in Terminal run...

sudo port install sqlite3
sudo port install apr-util
sudo port install neon

Excellent, you should now be ready to install Subversion 1.4.6 from source via MacPorts

Finally Subversion

Just run...

sudo port install subversion

Should install ok leaving you with the latest binary build of Subversion on your Apple machine.

What about a GUI ?

Ok, as most people don't really like using SVN from the command-line, you can download a mac gui interface to it at...

More MacPorts are available at...

Handy Tip

Before I go you can find out the location of a piece of software via the 'which' command.

which svn

Should return the path where it's installed.

Rails 2.0.2 from elsewhere

Posted by John
on Monday, 17 December 2007

Rails 2.0.2 has just been released, more bugfixes than new addons, but worth the download (running it here now).

However it's only available from http://gems.rubyonrails.org at the moment, but to get it do:

sudo gem install rails --source http://gems.rubyonrails.org

Here, your actually specifying which repository to use to find the gem.

To see what your default source location is:

sudo gem sources

Enjoy,

Firefox 3 Beta 1

Posted by John
on Wednesday, 07 November 2007

Brand new builds from the Mozilla Team,

FireBug Compatibility

there's a beta release of FireBug out to make this excellent tool work with Firefox 3...