[EMBOSS] Png problem on Mac OS 10.5

[David Leader]

I have installed Emboss v.5 successfully on several different G4 Macs  
running OS X 10.4, as well as on a Sun box running Solaris, so,  
although not a unix-head I am not a novice. I have just got round to  
installing unix software on a 64-bit Intel iMac running the latest  
10.5.x on which I had already used MacPorts to install the various  
graphics libraries (including libpng) needed to run GD in Perl. This  
is runnning fine so the libpng library is properly installed.

I did an install of Emboss v.6 on the machine and all seemed to  
proceed fine - configure, make and make install, and the programs  
run. (I also installed the emboss explorer package and they run from  
this.) However, although the programs run OK, I get an error message  
when I select png graphics, to the effect that png isn't an option -  
the available options being listed. However PostScript graphics work ok.

Unless there is a problem with v.6 of Emboss and the Mac, I suspect  
it may be a 32-bit/64-bit problem. It is known, for example, (and I  
know from personal experience), that if you install the pre-compiled  
64-bit version of MySQL then the Perl drivers don't work because the  
Perl that comes on Mac OS X 10.5 is 32-bit. For similar reasons one  
is advised to use 32-bit versions of PHP. So, could it be that Emboss  
has compiled in a 64-bit version, which is incompatible with the  
libpng library? If so, is there any way I can recompile Emboss  
forcing it into a 32-bit version?

David

PS Apologies if this is a known problem. I have just joined the list  
and don't see a search function.

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Dr. David P. Leader, Faculty of Biomedical & Life Sciences,
University of Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8QQ, UK
Phone: +44 (0)141 330 5905
http://doolittle.ibls.gla.ac.uk/leader

The University of Glasgow, charity number SC004401
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