Requirements

The programs you will need to compile Scribus are:

1. For Scribus 1.3.x+ GCC 3.x+ is required, GCC 3.3+ is strongly recommended. The Scribus Team has tested compiling with GCC 4.1 and recommends its use, if available, for the performance benefits.
2. autoconf 2.53+
3. automake 1.6.3+
4. GNU make

1. Qt 3.3.0+, both the runtime libraries and development libraries. We recommend using Qt 3.3.6+. Qt =< 3.2.x is not supported.
2. Python and python-devel libraries 2.3+. You can disable Python support with configure --without-python. Python 2.2 is not supported.
3. Freetype2 2.1.7+. Due to various freetype2 bugs, we recommend, if your distribution/OS allows, to use 2.2.1+
4. libart_lgpl 2.3.10+, 2.3.17+ recommended.
5. libxml2 2.6+.
6. Ghostscript 8.15+ or AFPL Ghostscript 8.54+ is highly recommended. Ubuntu users in particular are urged to update to a newer version if possible.
7. Postscript-Fonts. TrueType Fonts. Scribus also can support OpenType fonts both TrueType and Type 1 Outline OpenType Fonts.
8. Littlecms - also known as lcms in some distributions. Minimum 1.12, 1.15+ recommended. lcms 1.12+ has support for black point generation. 1.3.4cvs+ requires this.
9. libtiff 3.6.0+
10. libjpeg

Optionally:

• Cairo development libraries - You can optionally enable this in 1.3.3+ with --enable-cairo. The true benefits of Cairo are only gained when using the latest 1.2.x version of Cairo. Scribus 1.3.4cvs requires a minimum of Cairo 1.2.0
• CUPS development libraries - Scribus now directly supports printing with CUPS.
• Gimp Print development libraries - Scribus now directly supports the Gimp Print plug-in with CUPS.
• tkinter - for the font sampler script
• python-imaging libaries for font sampler script preview
• openssl-devel (Some linux distributions enable ssl support for CUPS, notably Suse Linux)
• fontconfig-devel - for auto discovery of fonts on Linux, MacOSX and Unix. Not needed on Windows.
• antiword - this is not needed at compile time for MS Word import. Scribus will detect this at run time however.

Scribus will run under most any window manager and does not require KDE itself. However, drag and drop functionality will be lost without KDE. One of the Scribus developers runs Gnome. The author of this documentation has made a point of testing each release of Scribus under Blackbox as well. This has shown no incompatibilities or problems for Scribus, except for the loss of drag and drop functionality.

If color management does not work, you may not have installed the development libraries for littlecms. When downloading the package from littlecms the make files are already configured for Linux, so compiling is straight forward. You also need at least one RGB profile and one CMYK profile installed or the color preferences and options will not appear in the menus.

Testing suggests setting the correct "-march=" CXXFLAGS has a very beneficial effect on Scribus performance. For example, if you have a Duron or Athlon processor, using export CXXFLAGS="-march=athlon" would be of benefit. Check if your distribution sets these for you and how they are set, and for further information see:

man gcc

Using Cmake

In 1.3.3.6+ and 1.3.4cvs, we have added support for using Cmake as an alternative for traditional autotools. This is still experimental, but we do encourage willing testers to use Cmake and report any issues to the mailing list or IRC. Our aim is to test this on as wide a variety of platforms as possible. Currently, Linux and MacOSX are working reliably. We are very encouraged with the progress of Cmake and anticipate autotools support may be removed before the 1.4 Stable release. Please see Cmake instructions for instructions.