diff --git a/ChangeLog b/ChangeLog
index 3bb49ce27f5c37cebb8c75955b95d90a6fe9582a..949862248bd7118e78d9218050d01c08a4119daa 100644
--- a/ChangeLog
+++ b/ChangeLog
@@ -1,3 +1,7 @@
+2011-03-06  Glenn Morris  <rgm@gnu.org>
+
+	* configure.in (FREETYPE_LIBS): Actually set it to something.
+
 2011-03-02  Paul Eggert  <eggert@cs.ucla.edu>
 
 	Work around some portability problems with symlinks.
diff --git a/configure.in b/configure.in
index 1f6213211da37d3034e8836d9febcd8bcf5aab51..69d1a1e5bd305d5b2278e4b4a342639a69d99f84 100644
--- a/configure.in
+++ b/configure.in
@@ -2244,15 +2244,23 @@ if test "${HAVE_X11}" = "yes"; then
       fi                          # "$HAVE_XFT" != no
     fi                            # "x${with_xft}" != "xno"
 
-    dnl For the "Does Emacs use" message at the end.
+    ## We used to allow building with FreeType and without Xft.
+    ## However, the ftx font backend driver is not in good shape.
     if test "$HAVE_XFT" != "yes"; then
+       dnl For the "Does Emacs use" message at the end.
        HAVE_XFT=no
+       HAVE_FREETYPE=no
+    else
+       dnl Strict linkers fail with
+       dnl ftfont.o: undefined reference to symbol 'FT_New_Face'
+       dnl if -lfreetype is not specified.
+       dnl The following is needed to set FREETYPE_LIBS.
+       PKG_CHECK_MODULES(FREETYPE, freetype2, HAVE_FREETYPE=yes,
+			 HAVE_FREETYPE=no) 
+
+       test "$HAVE_FREETYPE" = "no" && AC_MSG_ERROR(libxft requires libfreetype)
     fi
 
-    ## We used to allow building with FreeType and without Xft.
-    ## However, the ftx font backend driver is not in good shape.
-    HAVE_FREETYPE=$HAVE_XFT
-
     HAVE_LIBOTF=no
     if test "${HAVE_FREETYPE}" = "yes"; then
       AC_DEFINE(HAVE_FREETYPE, 1,