[acsmith]

Alright, I've been working on this for longer than I can remember. I can't get GTK+-2.8.16 to compile because it says libX11 isn't found when it is compiled and installed on my machine. I am using the --x-libraries and --x-includes flags pointing to the install dir of libX11. Here's the exact error:

checking for XOpenDisplay... no
configure: error: *** libX11 not found. Check 'config.log' for more details.

This is the command I passed:

# ./configure --x-libraries=/to/libs --x-includes=/to/includes

Of course /to/whatever are my actual directories.

I know it's finding X because when it checks for X it finds my libraries and headers:

checking for X... libraries /to/libraries, header /to/includes

It also finds ICE, just not XOpenDisplay. Is there some kind of dependency libX11 needs to compile with XOpenDisplay that I don't have? I'm really confused and tired. Sorry if I don't make sense. Thanks to anyone who puts up with me.

[acsmith]

When going through the config.log I noticed it was looking for xext just before it errored out. It turns out you need to have libXext installed before trying to compile GTK+.

[nazgul77]

thank you for posting the solution. indeed it requires the libxext-dev package (on ubuntu). this is not obvious since I had libX11-dev installed, too.