Sylpheed-Claws User's Manual: Installation.

To succesfully compile Sylpheed, you need at least:

Any POSIX compliant UNIX or similar OS eg. Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris
GTK+ 2.4.x or later
A recent ANSI C compiler ( gcc 2.95 should also work).

Optionally you need:

libcompface (for X-Face)
GPGME and GNUPG (for encryption and signature)
OpenSSL (for SSL support)
OpenLDAP (for LDAP connection)
IPv6 support can be turned on (if your system supports it)
Jpilot (for Palm addressbook use)
Libetpan (for IMAP4 support)
libgnomeprint(ui) (for real printing support)
the equivalent of GTK+-devel and Xfree86-devel. (Otherwise ./configure will fail.)

Notice: Sylpheed-Claws may be unstable depending on the environment. Please use the newest version of libraries if possible.

4.2 Environments known as valid for Sylpheed

Debian GNU/Linux unstable (sid) (glibc 2.2.5) (development environment)
Debian GNU/Linux testing (woody) (glibc 2.2.5)
Debian GNU/Linux 2.2 (potato) (glibc 2.1.3)
Kondara MNU/Linux (glibc 2.1.x)
Kondara MNU/Linux 1.2
Kondara MNU/Linux 2.0
Vine Linux 1.1 (glibc 2.0.x + libwcsmbs)
Vine Linux 2.0 (glibc 2.1.x) (Intel, PPC)
Vine Linux 2.1
Vine Linux 2.1.5
Laser5 Linux 6.0 (glibc 2.1.x)
Laser5 Linux 6.2 (glibc 2.1.x)
Laser5 Linux 6.4 (glibc 2.1.x)
TurboLinux 4.0 (glibc 2.0.7 + libwcsmbs)
TurboLinux 6.0 (glibc 2.1.2)
TurboLinux 7.0 (glibc 2.2.x)
Miracle Linux Standard Edition Version1.0
Miracle Linux for PostgreSQL Version1.0
Miracle Linux for Samba Version1.0
RedHat Linux 5.2 (glibc 2.0.7)
RedHat Linux 6.0
RedHat Linux 6.1 + Helix GNOME (glibc 2.1.x)
RedHat Linux 6.2 / 6.2J (glibc 2.1.x)
RedHat Linux 7.0 / 7.0J
RedHat Linux 7.1
RedHat Linux 7.2
LinuxPPC2000 + Yukikaze(Japanization kit)
Linux2000G (Intel, PowerPC)
HOLON Linux 2.0 (Intel / PPC)
Linux for PPC Japanese Edition 2.0 (glibc 2.1.x)
Linux for PPC Japanese Edition 3.0 (glibc 2.1.x)
Linux MLD4
Linux MLD5
Plamo Linux 2.0
Plamo Linux 2.1
Slackware 7.0
Slackware 7.1
Slackware 8.0
Linux Mandrake 7.0
Linux Mandrake 7.1
Linux Mandrake 7.2
Linux Mandrake 8.0
Linux Mandrake 8.1
SuSE Linux 6.3 (glibc 2.1.2)
SuSE Linux 6.4
SuSE Linux 7.0
SuSE Linux 7.1
SuSE Linux 7.2
SuSE Linux 7.3
OpenLinux 2.3 (glibc 2.1.1 -> 2.1.3)
Caldera OpenDesktop 2.4
Caldera Workstation 3.1
Conectiva Linux 4.0
Conectiva Linux 5.0
Conectiva Linux 7.0
Vector Linux 1.5
Yellow Dog Linux 2.0 (glibc 2.2.1)
Yellow Dog Linux 2.1 (PowerPC)
ASP Linux 7.2 (glibc 2.2.4)
Redmond Linux (Lycoris)

FreeBSD release 3.2
FreeBSD release 3.4
FreeBSD release 4.0
FreeBSD release 4.1
FreeBSD release 4.2
FreeBSD release 4.3
FreeBSD release 4.4
FreeBSD release 4.5
FreeBSD release 5.0
NetBSD 1.4.2
NetBSD 1.5 + XPG4DL
NetBSD 1.5.1
NetBSD 1.5.2
OpenBSD 2.7
OpenBSD 2.8 (i386)
OpenBSD 2.9
OpenBSD 3.0
BSD/OS 4.0.1

Solaris 2.5
Solaris 2.5.1
Solaris 2.6
Solaris 7
Solaris 8
IRIX 6.3
IRIX 6.4
IRIX 6.5, 6.5.8m
HP-UX 10.20
HP-UX 11.00
HP-UX 11i
Tru64 Unix 5.0 (OSF1 v5.0)
SCO UnixWare 7
Mac OS X 10.1.3 (Darwin 5.3) + XDarwin (without XLocale support) + libxpg4

Windows (MSVC + GTK+ for win32), in progress

4.3 Nuts and bolts of installation

Download the latest version of the Sylpheed-Claws package from http://claws.sylpheed.org/
Untar the sourcefiles to a new directory
tar -zxf sylpheed-claws-x.x.x.tar.gz (for tar.gz)
tar -jxf sylpheed-claws-x.x.x.tar.bz2 (for tar.bz2)
cd to the new sylpheed-claws-x.x.x directory
Run ./configure to check your environment and create the installation make files
Run the 'make' program which will compile the sources. Do not proceed with this step if there are fatal errors in the previous step. Fatal errors indicate that things are missing in order to compile Sylpheed-Claws properly.

If the make process has completed, run "make install" (as root), to install the program and the supportfiles.

Compiling Sylpheed-Claws with options

You can choose to compile Sylpheed-Claws with some optional features enabled. Use ./configure --help to list configuration syntax and options.

The following optional features can be enabled:

Jpilot: to use you PDA addressbook with Sylpheed. You will need the Jpilot library (and pilot-link, too). Enable this option with the --enable-jpilot configure switch.
GnuPG: Sylpheed-Claws can encrypt and sign your messages (also decrypt and verify the signatures of the incoming messages) using GnuPG. GnuPG follows the OpenPGP standard and is compatible with PGP. To enable this feature, you need to install GnuPG and GPGME (interface library to GnuPG). This is automatically enabled if possible.
LDAP: Sylpheed-Claws can connect to a LDAP server in order to query mail addresses. To enable this feature you will need the OpenLDAP library. Enable this option with the --enable-ldap configure switch.
X-Faces: you can create a small picture (of your face, or of anything else) that will be sent in the header of your mails. This option is enabled if the compface library is found and can be disabled using the --disable-compface configure switch.
SSL: OpenSSL support will be automatically built if openssl is available with its development files.
libetpan: libetpan is required to build IMAP4 support. As this is important, if libetpan isn't present, configure will fail. You can force a build with no IMAP4 support by using --disable-libetpan.

All these features require additional libraries and tools that may not be part of your distribution. You can find them at the addresses listed at the beginning of this chapter, here.