By rgriffiths on

Hi all

I have successfully loaded Drupal 6.2, on a Linux (Fedora Core8) boc, with Apache 2.2.6, MySQL 5.0.45, and PHP 5.2.4
But I can't work out how to fix two errors showing in the Status Report,
a) The GD library for PHP is missing or outdated. and
b) Operations on Unicode strings are emulated on a best-effort basis. i install mbstring

I've followed the links to the HOWTO's , but can't see a straightforward set of instructions.
I have tried re-comppiling php withe the "--with-gd" switch, but it fails with 'unable to locate libpng'
I try that again with --with-png-lib=/usr/lib, (where I can see libpng.so.3 and a couple of others, but it fails again with same error.

And while I hear it isn't essential, I'd like to clear the mbstring problem,
but can't find instructions on how to add that 'module' or whetever it is.

Any help much appreciated.
Anxious to get up and running before the Aust Drupal Meeting in Sydney Sunday 18th

Grif

⋅ Categories: Drupal 6.x

Comments

pembeci’s picture

pembeci commented

It may be better to ask these questions to a Fedora forum. PHP packages at most Linux distros come with GD library enabled. Are you checking phpinfo()'s output to make sure you can't see these there? Sorry these are the only things that come to my mind as advice.

rgriffiths’s picture

rgriffiths commented

pembici, hi and thanks.

I did run phpinfo(), and I saw in the output that php was configured '--without-gd'
that's what I'm trying to fix, by reconfiguring with the '--with-gd' and recompiling,
but can't get round the crash at 'can't find libpng' errors.

as for the mbstring error .. busy reading the php manual to work this one out.

I did imagine, tho, that a lot of Drupal installers would have met and overcome these two apparently common errors,

once again .. thanks for the advice .. I will try the Fedora/php forums if I can find one.

Russell Griffiths
Drupalier NoveauD

pembeci’s picture

pembeci commented

It seems like without recompiling php you may also add gd as an extra package:

http://www.google.com.tr/search?q=fedora+php+gd+package

I just glanced over, I am not sure these are recent though.

I did imagine, tho, that a lot of Drupal installers would have met and overcome these two apparently common errors

I didn't need to deal with those with my Debian box but you are right at that expectation. The problem is Drupal's userbase is growing too fast, so does the gap between the number of forum questions and the people with enough experience to answer them. As a result, getting an answer through forums depends on some luck since your question can fall back pretty fast and cannot be noticed by the people who have an answer.

You may check the 50000th node on Feb 2006 to see the growth until that point (there is a graph at the comments) . Your question was the 258684th post. Some of the new ones are handbook pages and issues but the bulk of them (I'd estimate at least 95%) are forum posts.

nwriter’s picture

nwriter commented

Although you've probably already found the solution.... It seems that in Fedora, to enable extensions, the extensions are now listed in their own files in the folder php.d, but it seems to me that Drupal is still looking at /etc/php.ini instead. Although it's probably not the best form, you could copy the extension entries from both mbstring.ini and gd.ini in /etc/php.d and put that into the extensions section of php.ini. Sort of like:

;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
; Dynamic Extensions ;
;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
;
; If you wish to have an extension loaded automatically, use the following
; syntax:
;
; extension=modulename.extension
;
; For example:
;
; extension=msql.so
;
; Note that it should be the name of the module only; no directory information
; needs to go here. Specify the location of the extension with the
; extension_dir directive above.

;;;;
; Note: packaged extension modules are now loaded via the .ini files
; found in the directory /etc/php.d; these are loaded by default.
;;;;
extension=mbstring.so
extension=gd.so

Kludgy, yes, but it works for me.