[Ffmpeg-devel] Shared libraries install script broken in cvs

[Jacob Meuser]

On Thu, Dec 15, 2005 at 07:01:29PM +0100, Diego Biurrun wrote:
> On Thu, Dec 15, 2005 at 11:06:05AM +0000, M?ns Rullg?rd wrote:
> > 
> > The current makefile attempts to run ldconfig, but fails if 'make install'
> > is not run as root, or if $libdir is not in /etc/ld.so.conf.
> 
> Yes.  Is that really a problem?  I mean that in the sense of: Don't all
> (most) install routines work that way?  What's the alternative?
> 
> > If we are to
> > rely on ldconfig creating the links, we should be running it in a way that
> > doesn't fail, or at the very least document that the user must do whatever
> > it takes to have the links created.  Furthermore, just running ldconfig is
> > not enough to create all links needed, as ldconfig only creates a link for
> > the library SONAME (e.g. libavcodec.so.0), not the unversioned name of the
> > library (e.g. libavcodec.so).  The latter is required for linking with the
> > library, since the linker will only search for lib*.so and lib*.a, and not
> > names with a version number appended.  Creating libfoo.so links is not the
> > job of ldconfig.  Its job is to create the links needed to resolve runtime
> > dependencies, nothing else.
> 
> We already do that, here are some of the lines printed by 'make -n
> install':
> 
> install -d /usr/local/lib
> install -s -m 755 libavcodec.so /usr/local/lib/libavcodec-CVS.so
> ln -sf libavcodec-CVS.so /usr/local/lib/libavcodec.so
> ldconfig || true
> 
> So this should be enough.  Unless we could drop ldconfig entirely in
> favor of creating the links ourselves.

personally, I think people should be aware of the issues of installing
software as non-root and/or installing libraries into paths that are not
part of the standard library search paths.

further, trying to make it so the user does not need to know what they
are doing is generally a bad idea.  it is IMO the philosophy that has
lead the autotools into being what they are today ... a collection of
kludges.

FFmpeg is generally respected for it's cleanliness.  please don't
start dirtying it up for the sake of people who are doing things beyond
the scope of their knowledge.

-- 
<jakemsr at jakemsr.com>