Item15301: ImagePlugin wants ImageMagick >= 7

There seems to be a big lag with ImageMagick 7 appearing in OS repositories, and reading through forums, it seems that it won't change in a rush.

I've managed to manually compile it, but had massive issues with the CPAN modules.

I ended up going back to a repo install of 6, and then having to use CPANM to install Image::Magick 6 modules, which again is another mess. Simply put, is there any reason why ImagePlugin is locked to >=7?

-- JonMcCoy - 25 Apr 2024

ImageMagick 7 is over 6 years old. I can't say why distros don't upgrade and still ship IM6. Historically, IM had lots of security problems in the past. Distros have been particularly slow in backporting those fixes to IM6. That's why it is best to compile IM yourself, downloaded from their primary site: https://imagemagick.org/archive/ImageMagick.tar.gz.

Here's the script we use on FO: https://foswiki.org/Community/FoswikiOrgServer#Installing_ImageMagick

-- MichaelDaum - 25 Apr 2024

Thanks Michael - I've tried that link, and I don't have view permissions for it. I'm curious how you're resolving the issues I stumbled on.

I had a lot of problems trying to compile both IM7 and the CPAN modules and had to give up in the end.I use Debian in as light an install as possible for deployment, though as you say, many other distros have been reluctant to move to 7. They do have the latest IM6 - looking at Debian's package management notes, March's build is the current package, so I'd assume that any historical security issues have been addressed.

Another big issue is with compiling on systems that we might not have root access, it gets very messy and difficult trying to compile something like IM when you can't fulfil its dependencies via repos etc.

As it works with both IM6 and IM7, can the dependencies be reduced to IM6 so long as it passes build tests?

-- JonMcCoy - 25 Apr 2024

Alright, thats fine with me. Not sure if the instagram filters work like they should. I'm an IM7-only user.

-- MichaelDaum - 26 Apr 2024

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