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I am trying to install some software on my mac; however I keep receiving the same error:

configure: error: The pkg-config script could not be found or is too old. Make sure it is in your PATH or set the PKG_CONFIG environment variable to the full path to pkg-config. Alternatively, you may set the environment variables XMEDCON_GLIB_CFLAGS and XMEDCON_GLIB_LIBS to avoid the need to call pkg-config. See the pkg-config man page for more details. To get pkg-config, see <http://pkg-config.freedesktop.org/>. See `config.log' for more details

I am not quite sure how to go about adding the pkg-config to the PATH. I have seen online (see link) that I should add the following:

Link showing how to direct PATH variable

export PATH=$PATH:/opt/local/bin # Fixed typo as mentioned in comment

which is where I have placed pkg-config. I still keep getting the error though every time I try to configure the files using ./configure. Any help would be super appreciated!

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  • You are missing a colon in export PATH=$PATH:/opt/local/bin. This presumes that /opt/local/bin/pkg-config exists and is the version you want. Commented Apr 21, 2014 at 17:22
  • My apologies for the typo. The problem is after typing this into the terminal followed by the ./configure command, I still receive this error. Any ideas as to what may be the problem? Commented Apr 21, 2014 at 17:25
  • What is the output from which pkg-config? Commented Apr 21, 2014 at 17:48
  • '/opt/local/bin/pkgconfig/bin/pkg-config' is what I get back where my PATH is set to /opt/local/bin/pkgconfig/bin Commented Apr 21, 2014 at 18:00

6 Answers 6

Reset to default
217

For Ubuntu/Debian OS,

apt-get install -y pkg-config

For Redhat/Yum OS,

yum install -y pkgconfig

For Archlinux OS,

pacman -S pkgconf

For MacOS,

brew install pkg-config

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4 Comments

Please note that the question was asked about osx.
Google still works with browsers on ubuntu though, and it landed me here. And a package-manager beats running arbitrary code curled over an insecure connection like the accepted answer suggests.
+1 to @AliSeyedi : The question was about OSX. I'm pretty sure that most Linux guys know how to install a package. It was not that obvious on a Mac.
When I performed the command on my Ubuntu, it required root privileges, i.e.- sudo apt-get install -y pkg-config (thought it is worth to mention it).
59

for me, (OSX) the problem was solved doing this: 

brew install pkg-config
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1 Comment

visit brew.sh if you don't have brew
41

Answer to my question (after several Google searches) revealed the following:

$ curl https://pkgconfig.freedesktop.org/releases/pkg-config-0.29.tar.gz -o pkgconfig.tgz $ tar -zxf pkgconfig.tgz && cd pkg-config-0.29 $ ./configure && make install

from the following link: Link showing above

Thanks to everyone for their comments, and sorry for my linux/OSX ignorance!

Doing this fixed my issues as mentioned above.

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4 Comments

Running these commands on Ubuntu 12.04 gives the error: configure: error: Either a previously installed pkg-config or "glib-2.0 >= 2.16" could not be found. Please set GLIB_CFLAGS and GLIB_LIBS to the correct values or pass --with-internal-glib to configure to use the bundled copy.
for ubuntu you can install it with sudo apt-get install pkg-config
This works on Ubuntu 14.04.6 LTS, if you want 0.29 instead of the default 0.26 (which is too old to cross-compile ffmpeg with).
Installing things with curl is very likely to end up causing a pain in the ass or breaking something in the future, and won't let you update automatically. I recommend using the answer from Stephen Hsu instead.
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if you have this error :

configure: error: Either a previously installed pkg-config or "glib-2.0 >= 2.16" could not be found. Please set GLIB_CFLAGS and GLIB_LIBS to the correct values or pass --with-internal-glib to configure to use the bundled copy.

Instead of do this command :

$ ./configure && make install

Do that :

./configure --with-internal-glib && make install
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2 Comments

Hi i have this error instead when i make install "symbol not found for architecture x86_64"
stackoverflow.com/questions/32940264/unable-to-make-pkg-config pkgconfig.freedesktop.org/releases/pkg-config-0.29.2.tar.gz version 0.29.2 has fixed this problem.
2

Try

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MacOS users

Unfortunately, pkg-config does not come with OS X by default. Here are some notes on how to compile from source. It assumes that you have Xcode installed.

  1. Download and extract
curl -O http://pkgconfig.freedesktop.org/releases/pkg-config-0.28.tar.gz tar xfz pkg-config-0.28.tar.gz
  1. Configure and Install
cd pkg-config-0.28 setenv CC /usr/bin/cc (for tcsh) export CC=/usr/bin/cc (for bash)

2a) If you have super-user powers

./configure --prefix=/usr/local CC=$CC --with-internal-glib make sudo make install

2b) if not

./configure --prefix=$HOME/someplace/in/my/path CC=$CC --with-internal-glib make make install

Source: https://opensource.ncsa.illinois.edu/confluence/display/DESDM/Installing+pkg-config+from+source+for+OSX

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