[XeTeX] could not build in Debian linux!

[Jonathan Kew]

On 14 Dec 2006, at 10:30 pm, Kia Teymourian wrote:

> hi,
> i followed the instructions for installing the XeTeX on Linux and  
> wanted
> to build it for my debian system.  I installed also all the necessary
> packages and started the  "sh build-xetex", which broke with this  
> massage:
>
> In file included from
> ../../../texk/web2c/xetexdir/XeTeXLayoutInterface.h:36,
>                  from ../../../texk/web2c/xetexdir/XeTeX_ext.c:68:
> ../../../texk/web2c/xetexdir/XeTeXFontMgr.h:40:35: error:
> fontconfig/fontconfig.h: No such file or directory

This indicates that the header files for Fontconfig were not found.  
Did you install a fontconfig-devel package (or some similar name; I  
don't know exactly what the Debian packages are called)? It is *not*  
sufficient to have the library installed; you also need the  
development files.

Note that the TeX Live 2006 release, which should be finalized very  
soon now, will include pre-built xetex binaries for many platforms,  
including Linux on several architectures, so this may be an  
alternative to building your own. But it should be possible to  
compile from source without too much difficulty, you just need to  
ensure the necessary libraries *and headers* are available.

JK