Arch Linux

FLEUH!!!

Member

Registered: 2025-09-29

Posts: 4

[SOLVED] Issue with compiling surf

hey everyone. i'm having this weird issue with compiling surf. i got it from their site and it doesn't work

Output:

[png@archy surf]$ make clean install
rm -f surf surf.o
rm -f webext-surf.so webext-surf.o
surf build options:
CC            = c99
Package webkit2gtk-4.1 was not found in the pkg-config search path.
Perhaps you should add the directory containing `webkit2gtk-4.1.pc'
to the PKG_CONFIG_PATH environment variable
Package 'webkit2gtk-4.1' not found
CFLAGS        = -fPIC   -DVERSION="2.1" -DGCR_API_SUBJECT_TO_CHANGE  -DLIBPREFIX="/usr/local/lib" -DWEBEXTDIR="/usr/local/lib/surf"  -D_DEFAULT_SOURCE -O1
Package webkit2gtk-4.1 was not found in the pkg-config search path.
Perhaps you should add the directory containing `webkit2gtk-4.1.pc'
to the PKG_CONFIG_PATH environment variable
Package 'webkit2gtk-4.1' not found
Package 'webkit2gtk-web-extension-4.1' not found
WEBEXTCFLAGS  = -fPIC  -O1
LDFLAGS       =
c99 -fPIC `pkg-config --cflags x11` `pkg-config --cflags gtk+-3.0 gcr-3 webkit2gtk-4.1` -DVERSION=\"2.1\" -DGCR_API_SUBJECT_TO_CHANGE  -DLIBPREFIX=\"/usr/local/lib\" -DWEBEXTDIR=\"/usr/local/lib/surf\"  -D_DEFAULT_SOURCE -O1 -c surf.c
Package webkit2gtk-4.1 was not found in the pkg-config search path.
Perhaps you should add the directory containing `webkit2gtk-4.1.pc'
to the PKG_CONFIG_PATH environment variable
Package 'webkit2gtk-4.1' not found
surf.c:9:10: fatal error: glib.h: No such file or directory
    9 | #include <glib.h>
      |          ^~~~~~~~
compilation terminated.
make: *** [Makefile:31: surf.o] Error 1

idk what's going on i've read similar posts that suggests downloading webkit2gtk solved the issue or gcr, but i have those already installed.

running the command with sudo also produce the same output:

[png@archy surf]$ sudo make clean install
rm -f surf surf.o
rm -f webext-surf.so webext-surf.o
surf build options:
CC            = c99
Package webkit2gtk-4.1 was not found in the pkg-config search path.
Perhaps you should add the directory containing `webkit2gtk-4.1.pc'
to the PKG_CONFIG_PATH environment variable
Package 'webkit2gtk-4.1' not found
CFLAGS        = -fPIC   -DVERSION="2.1" -DGCR_API_SUBJECT_TO_CHANGE  -DLIBPREFIX="/usr/local/lib" -DWEBEXTDIR="/usr/local/lib/surf"  -D_DEFAULT_SOURCE -O1
Package webkit2gtk-4.1 was not found in the pkg-config search path.
Perhaps you should add the directory containing `webkit2gtk-4.1.pc'
to the PKG_CONFIG_PATH environment variable
Package 'webkit2gtk-4.1' not found
Package 'webkit2gtk-web-extension-4.1' not found
WEBEXTCFLAGS  = -fPIC  -O1
LDFLAGS       =
c99 -fPIC `pkg-config --cflags x11` `pkg-config --cflags gtk+-3.0 gcr-3 webkit2gtk-4.1` -DVERSION=\"2.1\" -DGCR_API_SUBJECT_TO_CHANGE  -DLIBPREFIX=\"/usr/local/lib\" -DWEBEXTDIR=\"/usr/local/lib/surf\"  -D_DEFAULT_SOURCE -O1 -c surf.c
Package webkit2gtk-4.1 was not found in the pkg-config search path.
Perhaps you should add the directory containing `webkit2gtk-4.1.pc'
to the PKG_CONFIG_PATH environment variable
Package 'webkit2gtk-4.1' not found
surf.c:9:10: fatal error: glib.h: No such file or directory
    9 | #include <glib.h>
      |          ^~~~~~~~
compilation terminated.
make: *** [Makefile:31: surf.o] Error 1

Last edited by FLEUH!!! (2025-09-29 09:24:12)

seth

Member

From: Don't DM me only for attention

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 69,138

Re: [SOLVED] Issue with compiling surf

https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/surf

/usr/include/glib-2.0/glib.h is in glib2 but the main problem is likely just

Package 'webkit2gtk-4.1' not found
Package 'webkit2gtk-web-extension-4.1' not found

(assuming the glib header path get picked up w/ the pkg-config of webkit2gtk)

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FLEUH!!!

Member

Registered: 2025-09-29

Posts: 4

Re: [SOLVED] Issue with compiling surf

i've installed surf from the aur but it seems there's another issue
it only shows a gray background when i go to a website

the output that i get from yay's surf version:

[png@archy ~]$ surf duckduckgo.com
Gtk-Message: 12:06:38.039: Failed to load module "colorreload-gtk-module"
Gtk-Message: 12:06:38.039: Failed to load module "window-decorations-gtk-module"

(surf:46515): libenchant-WARNING **: 12:06:38.108: broker.vala:156: Error loading plu

(surf:46515): libenchant-WARNING **: 12:06:38.108: broker.vala:156: Error loading plu

(surf:46515): libenchant-WARNING **: 12:06:38.108: broker.vala:156: Error loading plu

(surf:46515): libenchant-WARNING **: 12:06:38.108: broker.vala:156: Error loading plu
Failed to create GBM buffer of size 1054x1058: Invalid argument
Could not read style file: /home/png/.surf/styles/default.css

FLEUH!!!

Member

Registered: 2025-09-29

Posts: 4

Re: [SOLVED] Issue with compiling surf

don't mind the gray background it's because i enabled dark mode (https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Dark_mode_switching) i switched it back to normal. now it only shows a white background with nothing on it. output still the same

FLEUH!!!

Member

Registered: 2025-09-29

Posts: 4

Re: [SOLVED] Issue with compiling surf

found the solution (https://www.reddit.com/r/suckless/comme … ost_sites/)

thanks seth. i'm going to mark this as solved