When compiling PHP (and PHP extensions), how do you disable 'features' that have no ./configure method of disabling them?

Question

Here is a few quick dumps that lead fairly well into the question:

1 - Showing our PHPGD is compiled with freetype support

[root@... php-5.3.8]# php -i | grep Free
FreeType Support => enabled
FreeType Linkage => with freetype
FreeType Version => 2.3.11

2 - HTTPD child pmap showing the freetype libraries are loading (as expected)

[root@... php-5.3.8]# pmap 31638 | grep free
00007f1edd426000    604K r-x--  /usr/lib64/libfreetype.so.6.3.22
00007f1edd4bd000   2044K -----  /usr/lib64/libfreetype.so.6.3.22
00007f1edd6bc000     24K rw---  /usr/lib64/libfreetype.so.6.3.22

3 - Showing that ./configure (5.3.8 source) has no way to disable freetype support

[root@... php-5.3.8]# ./configure --help | grep free
 --with-freetype-dir[=DIR] GD: Set the path to FreeType 2 install prefix

So, I think the above sums the question up fairly well:

How do I go about disabling FreeType support?

I just used FreeType as an example, but there are countless other examples where ./configure has no way of disabling 'features' of php (or its extensions) that we never use (such as FreeType support).

Answer 1

Packages which would be included with --with-PACKAGE can be disabled using --without-PACKAGE. Features enabled with --enable-FEATURE can be disabled using --disable-FEATURE.

As far as I know, Freetype (part of GD, see installation docs) is not enabled by default if you omit --with-freetype-dir.