Installed babl, but gimp2.7 still says No package 'babl' found

Question

I asked this question minutes ago. I am trying to install babl for gimp2.7 using this guide However after I sudo make install babl and ./configure gimp, I still get the following error.

No package 'babl' found

Consider adjusting the PKG_CONFIG_PATH environment variable if you
installed software in a non-standard prefix.

Alternatively, you may set the environment variables BABL_CFLAGS
and BABL_LIBS to avoid the need to call pkg-config.
See the pkg-config man page for more details.

I installed babl with the prefix /opt/gimp-2.7 as in the guide

On using locate, I get

    locate babl
/usr/lib/babl-0.0
/usr/lib/libbabl-0.0.so.0
/usr/lib/libbabl-0.0.so.0.22.0
/usr/lib/babl-0.0/CIE-Lab.so
/usr/lib/babl-0.0/gegl-fixups.so
/usr/lib/babl-0.0/gggl-lies.so
/usr/lib/babl-0.0/gggl.so
/usr/lib/babl-0.0/gimp-8bit.so
/usr/lib/babl-0.0/naive-CMYK.so
/usr/lib/babl-0.0/sse-fixups.so
/usr/share/doc/libbabl-0.0-0
/usr/share/doc/libbabl-0.0-0/AUTHORS
/usr/share/doc/libbabl-0.0-0/NEWS.gz
/usr/share/doc/libbabl-0.0-0/README.gz
/usr/share/doc/libbabl-0.0-0/TODO
/usr/share/doc/libbabl-0.0-0/TODO.Debian
/usr/share/doc/libbabl-0.0-0/changelog.Debian.gz
/usr/share/doc/libbabl-0.0-0/copyright
/var/cache/apt/archives/libbabl-0.0-0_0.0.22-1build1_i386.deb
/var/lib/dpkg/info/libbabl-0.0-0.list
/var/lib/dpkg/info/libbabl-0.0-0.md5sums
/var/lib/dpkg/info/libbabl-0.0-0.postinst
/var/lib/dpkg/info/libbabl-0.0-0.postrm
/var/lib/dpkg/info/libbabl-0.0-0.shlibs

My $Path

/opt/gimp-2.7/bin:/opt/gimp-2.7/bin:/home/abc/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games:/opt/real/RealPlayer:/babl:/usr/lib

(I added the /babl and /usr/lib)

Where is the fault? Is babl not installed properly? If yes, How do I rectify it? Is the path improper? Where should a 'package' be installed to be findable?

Solution

It looks like you need to adjust your PKG_CONFIG_PATH environment variable so the configure script can properly resolve the location of the babl library that you installed in the previous step.

You can do so in two ways:

export PKG_CONFIG_PATH="$PKG_CONFIG_PATH:/opt/gimp-2.7/lib/pkgconfig/"

which will take the current value of PKG_CONFIG_PATH and append /opt/gimp-2.7/lib/pkgconfig/ to it.

When using export the value of PKG_CONFIG_PATH variable will persist during single terminal session. Once the command above is run you can invoke configure script as normal:

./configure --prefix=/opt/gimp-2.7

Another way to achieve the same end result would be to invoke the configure script as below:

PKG_CONFIG_PATH="$PKG_CONFIG_PATH:/opt/gimp-2.7/lib/pkgconfig/" ./configure --prefix=/opt/gimp-2.7

When invoked in this way the value of the PKG_CONFIG_PATH will only be modified for the time of execution of the configure script.

Comments

[Admin]

Why are you compiling gimp 2.7 - You could install via a ppa... Have you read this as well (section about babl)? only10types.com/2010/06/…

[Admin]

@fossfreedom I wanted to keep gimp 2.6 too.Doesn't the PPA version overwrite the stable gimp?

[Admin]

correct - but that would be an interesting question itself!

[Admin]

@fossfreedom I might have better luck installing the stable gimp to a different path. Thanks for the tip! Meanwhile, I will let the question stay just in case

[Admin]

@abel Can you verify that babl installed correctly? If you installed it as per the linked guide it should be in /opt/gimp-2.7. To check, simply issue ls /opt/gimp-2.7/lib/ on command-line. Also, remember that if you set your PKG_CONFIG_PATH it's not persisted across different terminal sessions so you have to set it again if you close / open your terminal window. If babl installed correctly, go to directory with gimp sources and do PKG_CONFIG_PATH="$PKG_CONFIG_PATH:/opt/gimp-2.7/lib/pkgconfi‌​g/ ./configure --prefix=/opt/gimp-2.7. HTH.

[Admin]

@ppb I get a prompt when I do that. and when I Ctrl C out of the prompt and try to configure again, I get the same No package error. I haven't closed the terminal yet, so the PATH variable should hopefully be ok.

[Admin]

@abel Apologies, there's a missing double quote in there, it should be PKG_CONFIG_PATH="$PKG_CONFIG_PATH:/opt/gimp-2.7/lib/pkgconfi‌​g/" ./configure --prefix=/opt/gimp-2.7

[Admin]

@ppb. That worked great. Thank you! Now I have to install gegl. Please post your comment as an answer.