Installation issue: freetype with autotools doesn't find libpng

[moloney]

Steps to reproduce the issue

$ spack install freetype

Error message

Error message

...
  >> 141    configure: error: libpng support requested but library not found
  >> 142    make: *** [/mnt/scratch/moloney/spack-stage/spack-stage-freetype-2.
            13.2-w32sfgbssvuoakpwpbkc2ax3x2avfwzb/spack-src/builds/unix/detect.
            mk:89: setup] Error 1
...

Information on your system

• Spack: 1.1.0.dev0 (spack/spack@caad45c)
• Builtin repo: 1ead496
• Python: 3.9.17
• Platform: linux-rhel9-sapphirerapids

Additional information

Build works with build_system=cmake, but some packages in my environment (e.g. py-matplotlib) require build_system=autotools and that is also the default.

@michaelkuhn

spack-build-env.txt
spack-build-out.txt

General information

• I have run spack debug report and reported the version of Spack/Python/Platform
• I have run spack maintainers <name-of-the-package> and @mentioned any maintainers
• I have uploaded the build log and environment files
• I have searched the issues of this repo and believe this is not a duplicate

[michaelkuhn]

I can't reproduce this. Which libpng variants etc. are you using? This configuration works for me:

[+]  freetype@2.13.2+pic+shared build_system=autotools platform=linux os=fedora42 target=skylake %c=gcc@15.1.1
...
[+]      ^libpng@1.6.47~ipo~pic build_system=cmake build_type=Release generator=make libs:=shared,static platform=linux os=fedora42 target=skylake %c,cxx=gcc@15.1.1
...

[moloney]

I am having a hard time reproducing this issue myself. Originally it was coming up while building a rather large environment (although without any non-default variants being explicitly requested for freetype / libpng). The only thing I have changed in the meantime is some fixes to how I was requesting a specific compiler / target, but now when I build the same environment the freetype build succeeds. I am going to keep poking around and see if it comes up again.