Trying the naive "./configure && make && sudo make install" method doesn't go very well when running Debian stretch:
sean@seoul ~/d/s/xmms-1.2.11> ./configure checking build system type... x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu MANY LINES LATER *** The glib-config script installed by GLIB could not be found *** If GLIB was installed in PREFIX, make sure PREFIX/bin is in *** your path, or set the GLIB_CONFIG environment variable to the *** full path to glib-config. configure: error: *** GLIB >= 1.2.2 not installed - please install first ***
As it turns out I wasn't able to find a pre-built version of GLIB 1.x or (a subsequent dependency) GTK 1.x, I found some sources (GLIB 1.2 and GTK+ 1.2) but these were hitting an error when running ./configure which indicated that the CPU wasn't supported. These libraries pre-date the x86-64 era so my processor wasn't recognised. The fix was to simply drop in a newer config.sub. There was one more issue with the G_GNUC_PRETTY_FUNCTION macro but I resolved that too - I put them onto GitHub as glib-1.x and gtk-1.x in case anyone else wants to use this. Installing them is easy:
$ git clone https://github.com/smcl/gtk-1.x $ cd gtk-1.x $ ./configure --prefix=/usr && make $ sudo make install $ git clone https://github.com/smcl/glib-1.x $ cd glib-1.x $ ./configure --prefix=/usr && make $ sudo make installOnce these are in place we can grab the "latest" old XMMS sources from xmms.org and build those:
$ curl -LO http://www.xmms.org/files/1.2.x/xmms-1.2.11.tar.gz $ tar -xzf xmms-1.2.11.tar.gz $ cd xmms-1.2.11 $ ./configure && make $ sudo make install
Then if all is well then the original (and best!) xmms should be installed into your path, so you can go download some lovely skin of a brushed aluminium late-90s Sony CD player ... though it might be a little bit tiny if you use a HiDPI screen: