# Install build tools, debian helpers and fakeroot
apt-get install build-essential debhelper fakeroot
# source code should reside in /usr/src
cd /usr/src
# Download PHP source
apt-get source php5
# Install all packages required to build PHP5
apt-get build-dep php5
cd php5-5.2.3

How a package is compiled is set within the files contained in the debian directory of a package. Rules for configuring the compile process can be found in <b>debian/rules</b>. In this file there is a line that reads:

--with-gd=shared,/usr --enable-gd-native-ttf \.

This links to the Ubuntu distributed version of LibGD as a shared library. It is part of the autoconf script that customises the compilation of PHP. I replaced this line with:

 --with-gd=shared --enable-gd-native-ttf \. 

This causes the compilation process to use the bundled version of GD and make a shared library. Once the package has been reconfigured it can be compiled and installed by:

    # build the php5-* packages
    dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot
    cd ..
    # Install the new php5-gd package
    dpkg -i php5-gd_5.2.3-1ubuntu6.3_i386.deb