This mail contains fontconfig build error issue + possible solution. Sorry for bothering anyone, who has nothing in common with fontconfig library, but those two emails were the only ones i have found (and that has looked good). (joining mailing lists is a bit complicated for just reporting such a stupid error) i used to compile gtk for myself for many years since gtk+-1.2 release. with newer gtk releases i always do the sequence of compiling: freetype fontconfig + xft glib atk pango gtk i always compile these libraries into separete directory not to destroy my debian stable dependencies. so far so good. now im upgrading to gtk-2.4.1 and i downloaded the latest releases of fontconfig. compiling of a fontconfig library ended with an error like that one reported on url: http://freedesktop.org/pipermail/fontconfig/2004-April/000896.html it looks like this: gcc -g -O2 -o .libs/fc-cache fc-cache.o ../src/.libs/libfontconfig.so ../src/.libs/libfontconfig.so: undefined reference to `MAX' ../src/.libs/libfontconfig.so: undefined reference to `ABS' ../src/.libs/libfontconfig.so: undefined reference to `MIN' collect2: ld returned 1 exit status make[2]: *** [fc-cache] Error 1 make[2]: Leaving directory `/home/prickett/build/fontconfig-2.2.94/fc-cache' make[1]: *** [all-recursive] Error 1 make[1]: Leaving directory `/home/prickett/build/fontconfig-2.2.94' make: *** [all] Error 2 im not a good C programmer, but i can define MACROS like MAX and MIN :), anyway, to solve this with no effort, i just copied the definitions of those macros from glib release 2.4.1 (file gmacros.h) and i put them to fontconfig.h: /* ....... */ /* macros taken from glib -- gmacros.h (2.4.1) -- martin 20040502 */ #undef MAX #define MAX(a, b) (((a) > (b)) ? (a) : (b)) #undef MIN #define MIN(a, b) (((a) < (b)) ? (a) : (b)) #undef ABS #define ABS(a) (((a) < 0) ? -(a) : (a)) #endif /* _FONTCONFIG_H_ */ once i did that, everything was ok. what i was wondering is how possible you don't have this error? anyway, this a solution for me and maybe for others? hope this will reach the right person greeting from czech republic. Regards, martin.