configure --with-gd=path (as opposed to just --with-gd) will not check for FreeType on the system and gdtff functions will not be included.

Also, while installing on an Alpha OSF4 machine, after compiling gd 1.3 (archive straight from http://www.boutell.com/gd/, 'make; mkdir lib; ln libgd.a lib; mkdir include; ln *.h include'), configuring PHP3 with --with-gd=`pwd`/../gd1.3 failed to detect gdImageString16 in the library (the function _was_ there, I verified that), thus thinking it was configuring for use with GD 1.2 instead. I did not find a fix for this other than changing config.h manually afterwards, and do not have continued access to the machine to test further.

fix for the first issue:

*** /usr/local/src/php3-cvs/php3/configure.in~	Thu Jul 30 16:55:47 1998
--- /usr/local/src/php3-cvs/php3/configure.in	Thu Jul 30 17:02:05 1998
***************
*** 496,501 ****
--- 496,502 ----
          GD_LIBS="-L$withval/lib -lgd"
          AC_DEFINE(HAVE_LIBGD)
          AC_CHECK_LIB(gd, gdImageString16, [ AC_DEFINE(HAVE_LIBGD13) ])
+         ac_cv_lib_gd_gdImageLine=yes
          AC_MSG_RESULT(yes)
        else
          AC_MSG_RESULT(no)