matplotlib and freetype2 on OS X

John wrote:

I use matplotlib with GTK on OSX 10.3 with freetype, gtk and mpl
installed from src. I did this once a while ago and have had no
trouble. Perhaps if you install freetype first, and then compile gtk
against that it will work ok. I know this is easier said than done,
since compiling gtk from src is a commitment.

Strange. Do you have pygtk working? I've been building gtk from
source. As I noted, I finally got it to build with freetype
in /usr/local, but only with certain CPP and LD flags set. But
I haven't been able to get pygtk to work. It builds fine, but
gives a bus error on import.

Another option would be to use one of the precompiled matplotlib
packages that have freetype statically compiled in. I think Charles
Moad has been working on this.

I'm just a "use the source, Luke" kind of guy, I guess....

Thanks for the further input,
Tom