[GRASS-dev] Trunk fails at configure phase on Ubuntu 18.04

[Maris Nartiss]

Hello folks,
I just updated my Ubuntu box from previous LTS to new LTS (18.04).
When I try to configure a fresh trunk checkout, it fails to pass
configure phase:

./configure --enable-debug --with-nls --with-cxx --with-bzlib
--with-liblas --with-freetype
--with-freetype-includes=/usr/include/freetype2 --with-X11
--with-wxwidgets --with-python --with-sqlite --with-geos --with-blas
--with-openmp --with-lapack --with-pdal --with-zstd
configure: error: freetype: invalid package name

Here's the last part of sh -x:
+ test -n
+ ac_optarg=
+ echo --with-freetype
+ sed -e s/-*with-// -e s/=.*//
+ ac_package=freetype
+ echo freetype
+ sed s/[-_a-zA-Z0-9]//g
+ test -n y
+ echo configure: error: freetype: invalid package name
configure: error: freetype: invalid package name
+ exit 1

Any hints how to work around this issue?

It is not a freetype issue, as removing freetype from configure call
then results in failure with Python, or "freetype-includes: invalid
package name". Thus it is something bad in the configure "magic".

Thanks,
Māris.