Fontconfig is built with the traditional configure script: $ ./configure --sysconfdir=/etc --prefix=/usr --mandir=/usr/share/man This should generate valid Makefiles, then: $ make $ make install If you're going to package fontconfig for release, there are several important steps: 1. Update the version numbers configure.in fontconfig/fontconfig.h 2. Fix the README Change version number Set the date 3. Commit those changes 4. rebuild the configuration files with autogen.sh sh autogen.sh --sysconfdir=/etc --prefix=/usr --mandir=/usr/share/man 5. make distcheck (NB: won't work without docbook-utils -PL) 6. tag the tree cvs tag fc-2_2_xx 7. Split out the ChangeLog into ChangeLog-2.2.xx with the changes since the previous release 8. Copy ChangeLog-2.2.xx and fontconfig-2.2.xx.tar.gz to freedesktop.org:/srv/fontconfig.freedesktop.org/www/release 9. Update the Fontconfig Devel wiki page http://fontconfig.org/wiki/Devel 10. Compute md5sums for release files: md5sum fontconfig-2.2.xx.tar.gz ChangeLog-2.2.xx 11. Post a note to fontconfig@fontconfig.org. Include the md5sums. gpg sign the message.