Using GD library

[midwestm]

I just signed up for JaguarPC and so far, I'm loving it. I did some searching on the GD library, as one of my clients would like to use it for a wordpress plugin. Also, it'd be nice for Coppermine to be able to use it if someone so desired. (The message that Coppermine gives is: "PHP running on your server does not support the GD image library, check with your webhost if ImageMagick is installed")

The problem is that I don't know heads or tails about how to make it happen. I'm on a managed VPS for a reason.

Here is a link to the source material. Yea, I know there is a FAQ.

http://www.boutell.com/gd/index.html

Before I harrass the support staff, I thought I'd ask if anyone knows how to make this happen on their VPS. Is it difficult, time intensive? Can it compromise other features?

Thanks.

[Ron]

You have to recompile PHP with GD support.

Do this from the command line:

php -i |grep GD

If you get nothing back, GD isn't installed. If it is installed, you'll get something like this back:

GD Support => enabled
GD Version => bundled (2.0.28 compatible)

Running phpinfo() this is the way the php configure command looks on my server here:

'./configure' '--prefix=/usr' '--with-xml' '--enable-bcmath' '--enable-calendar' '--with-curl' '--with-dom' '--with-dom-xslt' '--with-dom-exslt' '--enable-exif' '--enable-ftp' '--with-gd' '--with-jpeg-dir=/usr/local' '--with-png-dir=/usr' '--with-xpm-dir=/usr/X11R6' '--with-gettext' '--with-iconv' '--with-imap=/usr/local/imap-2004g' '--enable-mbstring' '--enable-mbstr-enc-trans' '--enable-mbregex' '--with-mcrypt' '--with-mhash' '--enable-magic-quotes' '--with-mysqli' '--with-mysql=/usr' '--with-openssl' '--enable-discard-path' '--with-pear' '--with-pspell' '--enable-xslt' '--with-xslt-sablot' '--enable-sockets' '--enable-track-vars' '--with-ttf' '--with-freetype-dir=/usr' '--enable-gd-native-ttf' '--enable-versioning' '--enable-wddx' '--with-xmlrpc' '--with-zip' '--with-zlib'

I don't know if this is one of the things they do for you for free on a managed VPS or not, but you could always open a ticket and ask!

Good luck, and let us know!

[midwestm]

Thanks Ron. I ran the command line and got nothing back. I'll wait to hear if anyone else chimes in here on the forum if they know what's involved in the complexities of making it happen. If not, I'll raise the question with support and get back to ya'll.

[Vin DSL]

ImageMagick is a zillion times better than GD, IMHO! Go wit dah flo!

[Vin DSL]

You have to recompile PHP with GD support.

I've never heard of a server that didn't have GD enabled.

It's so... Gosh Darned common, you know?

[Ron]

Ever since I installed my photo gallery, every server I have been on(2) I've had to open a ticket and ask for it to be installed...

[Vin DSL]

Ever since I installed my photo gallery, every server I have been on(2) I've had to open a ticket and ask for it to be installed...

GD???

[Ron]

Yes, the GD "GD lib" supoort isn't always installed.

As a matter of fact, I had to ask for it to be installed (and a few other configuration changes) 3 times on zeus when I was on it very early and it was crashing and needing to be rebuilt. That's the first time I was ever really annoyed here.

[Smithjp]

Acutally when cPanel is installed on a new server, the cPanel installation script also compiles php and apache but with only few options. So usually the new servers don't have GD support enabled by default. Thats why we have to recompile PHP with GD support on the new servers or on the servers that we rebuild.

[Vin DSL]

[midwestm]

huh, so should I have asked Jagpc to recompile with GD enabled before they transferred my accounts over from my other VPS? Recompiling everything seems like a big step at this point... but that could just be the ignorance talking.

[midwestm]

A huge thank you to Jag. I posted an inquiry as to what would be involved in getting the GD library in, as well as freetype, and they did it right on the spot without charging me anything.

Many kudos to Jag! I am really feeling like I made the right move.