Base dependency to run Synfig on Linux systems is glibc. It has backward compatibility, but not forward. So if you build Synfig on newer OS like Debian 9 it will not start on older OS like Debian 7. To do that we use Debian 7 docker image for building Synfig for production. For testing/debug purposes or for own usage you can build Synfig on any preferred OS. glibc versions (obtained by using ldd --version): * Debian 7.11 - 2.13 * Debian 8.10 - 2.19
sudo docker run -it debian/wheezy-backports /bin/bash -l