"If you're compiling stuff, you're doin' it wrong..."

Holy moly! These guys have a strange kind of humor.

I installed GD on Linux several times some time ago.

The prerequisites are zlib, libjpeg, libpng, freetype2 and libgd, as i remember.

In many cases the debs or rpms provided by SuSE/Novell or Debian didn't work so I needed to compile the libs myself. This never worked without some less or more annoying complications.

OK, Debian comes (or came) with a GD package but with perlbrew this is a different thing.

On the Mac there is no such package management tool like apt or rpm.

I could install Homebrew but i really don't want do do this.

This continues ad nauseam.

For example someone jumped to the conclusion to pack libpng with xz.

The version of tar that comes with OS X doesn't unpack these files. So i need another version of tar (which i must compile) or another unpacker (which i must compile too or buy) - or perhaps i must rely on a "free" binary from some dubious source.

I skip the rest that goes or could go wrong.

In the worst case i end up with a box cluttered with not working stuff that i need to remove by hand.

So i'll continue with RTFM. Some of the links you provided i have already read, some not.

Thank you very much and best regards, Karl

Edit: Minor changes of wording.

P.S.: Or i try what BrowserUK suggested below. Please see ibidem about the background of my question.