Compiling ghostscript so that gv doesn't fail

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If you try to use gv, a great pdf file and postscript file viewer, notable for keyboard operation, on a system with unpatched ghostscript 8.71, gv will fail with something like:

<pre> Error: /undefined in copy_trailer_attrs <blockquote> Operand stack: </blockquote> <blockquote> Execution stack: %interp_exit .runexec2 —nostringval— —nostringval— —nostringval— 2 %stopped_push —nostringval— —nostringval— —nostringval— false 1 %stopped_push 1878 1 3 %oparray_pop 1877 1 3 %oparray_pop 1861 1 3 %oparray_pop 1755 1 3 %oparray_pop —nostringval— %errorexec_pop .runexec2 —nostringval— —nostringval— —nostringval— 2 %stopped_push —nostringval— Dictionary stack: —<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=1159/1684">dict:1159/1684</a>(ro)(G)— —<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=1/20">dict:1/20</a>(G)— —<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=75/200">dict:75/200</a>(L)— —<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=108/127">dict:108/127</a>(ro)(G)— —<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=288/300">dict:288/300</a>(ro)(G)— —<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=21/25">dict:21/25</a>(L)— Current allocation mode is local Last OS error: 11 GPL Ghostscript 8.71: Unrecoverable error, exit code 1 </pre> </blockquote>

This is due to bugs in ghostscript 8.71.

I solved the issue by compiling ghostscript based on Sabayon Gentoo patches and guidelines. You can achieve this by: <ul> <li>Download the patched ghostscript source, including all Gentoo ghostscript 8.71-r4 patches: <table bgcolor="#000000" border="1"><tr><td border="0">$ wget -c <a href="http://sumoudou.org/src/ghostscript-8.71-r4.tar.xz">http://sumoudou.org/src/ghostscript-8.71-r4.tar.xz</a></td></tr></table></li> <li>Extract and build: <table bgcolor="#000000" border="1"><tr><td border="0">$ tar xvf ghostscript-8.71-r4.tar.xz $ cd ghostscript-8.71-r4 $ sed -i -e 's:png_check_sig:png_sig_cmp:' base/configure.ac $ sed -i -e 's:png_check_sig:png_sig_cmp:' jbig2dec/configure.ac $ autoreconf $ cd jbig2dec $ autoreconf $ cd ijs $ autoreconf $ ./configure —disable-compile-inits —enable-dynamic —enable-fontconfig —with-driver=ALL —with-ijs —with-jbig2dec —with-libpaper $ make -j1 so all $ make -j1 install-so install</td></tr></table></li> </ul>

Now gv will not fail and will display pdf files beautifully. <!— Page published by Emacs Muse ends here —> </div> To send me feedback about this page, use the below email. © sumoudou.org 2010 <img style="border:0" alt="sumoudou.org" src="email.gif" width="129" height="10" /> <a href="http://www.gnu.org/" style="text-decoration: none;"><img style="border:0" alt="GNU" src="powered-by-gnu.png" />]] <a href="http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/emacs.html" style="text-decoration: none;"><img style="border:0" alt="GNU Emacs" src="made-with-emacs.png" />]] <a href="http://hcoop.net/" style="text-decoration: none;"><img style="border:0" alt="HCoop" src="hcoop-proud-member.png" />]] <a href="http://hcoop.net/" style="text-decoration: none;"><img style="border:0" alt="HCoop" src="hosted-by-hcoop.png" />]] <a href="http://mwolson.org/projects/EmacsMuse.html" style="text-decoration: none;"><img style="border:0" alt="Emacs Muse" src="made-with-muse.png" />]] <a href="http://mwolson.org/projects/EmacsMuse.html" style="text-decoration: none;"><img style="border:0" alt="Emacs Muse" src="powered-by-muse.png" />]] <a href="http://www.fsf.org/resources/formats/playogg" style="text-decoration: none;"><img style="border:0" alt="Ogg" src="play-ogg.png" />]] <a href="http://www.catb.org/hacker-emblem/" style="text-decoration: none;"><img style="border:0" alt="Glider" src="glider.png" />]] <a href="http://ubuntu.com/" style="text-decoration: none;"><img style="border:0" alt="Ubuntu" src="ubuntu.png" />]] <a href="http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=referer" style="text-decoration: none;"><img style="border:0" alt="Valid XHTML 1.0 Strict!" src="valid-xhtml10-blue.png" />]] <a href="http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/check/referer" style="text-decoration: none;"><img style="border:0" alt="Valid CSS!" src="valid-css-blue.png" />]] Last updated 2010-04-25-081624

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