How to Losslessly Optimize JPG, PNG, and GIF Images on Linux Using littleutils

Reducing image file sizes without sacrificing visual quality is one of the highest-impact optimizations for production websites. The littleutils package provides a collection of fast, lightweight command-line utilities—including opt-png, opt-jpg, and opt-gif—that losslessly compress images for faster web delivery.

Supported Utilities: opt-png (via pngcrush) • opt-jpg • opt-gif (via gifsicle)

1. Installing Required Prerequisites (CentOS / RHEL)

Install the necessary build tools and image compression libraries:

yum groupinstall "Development Tools" -y
yum install libpng-devel libjpeg-turbo-devel gifsicle -y

Compiling pngcrush:

cd /usr/src
wget https://sourceforge.net/projects/pmt/files/pngcrush/1.8.10/pngcrush-1.8.10.tar.gz
tar -zxf pngcrush-1.8.10.tar.gz
cd pngcrush-1.8.10
make
cp pngcrush /usr/local/bin/

2. Compiling littleutils

Download and build the littleutils suite:

cd /usr/src
wget http://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/littleutils/littleutils-source/1.0.27/littleutils-1.0.27.tar.bz2
tar -jxf littleutils-1.0.27.tar.bz2
cd littleutils-1.0.27
./configure --prefix=/usr/local
make
make install
make install-extra

3. Usage Examples

Optimize individual files or batch-compress entire image directories in place:

# Optimize a single PNG image losslessly
opt-png image.png

# Optimize a single JPEG image
opt-jpg photo.jpg

# Optimize all images in a directory
find /var/www/html/images/ -type f -name "*.png" -exec opt-png {} +
find /var/www/html/images/ -type f -name "*.jpg" -exec opt-jpg {} +