can't build matplotlib (png package issue)

Question

try to build matplotlib on fedora-18, build fails with

...
 png: no  [pkg-config information for 'libpng' could not
                        be found.]
...
                        * The following required packages can not be built:
                        * png

What should I do/check to build png package ?

Answer 1

Sounds like you don't have libpng-devel installed. This install is not handled by pip, so you'll need to install it yourself.

You should be able to install it via yum.

sudo yum install libpng-devel

You may also need freetype. Maybe try yum-builddep matplotlib?

Answer 2

Under Cent Os 7, I was able to install matplotlib after installing libpng-static. Please try libpng-static as well as libpng-devel.

Answer 3

In mint/kubuntu as of today, it's named: libpng16-devtools, so the command to install it would be:

sudo apt-get install libpng16-devtools