Installing as a lib in /usr/local/lib

To configure, build, and install as a lib in /usr/local/lib:

$ autoreconf -i
$ ./configure
$ make
$ sudo make install

After installing in /usr/local/lib, running ./libtool –finish /usr/local/lib produces this…

Libraries have been installed in:
   /usr/local/lib

If you ever happen to want to link against installed libraries
in a given directory, LIBDIR, you must either use libtool, and
specify the full pathname of the library, or use the '-LLIBDIR'
flag during linking and do at least one of the following:
   - add LIBDIR to the 'LD_LIBRARY_PATH' environment variable
     during execution
   - add LIBDIR to the 'LD_RUN_PATH' environment variable
     during linking
   - use the '-Wl,-rpath -Wl,LIBDIR' linker flag
   - have your system administrator add LIBDIR to '/etc/ld.so.conf'

See any operating system documentation about shared libraries for
more information, such as the ld(1) and ld.so(8) manual pages.

This is important information describing ways to use the library installed in alternate places.

Raspbian (RaspberryPi) Notes

After install, programs compiled fine with:

$ gcc -o hello hello.c -ltinylogger -lpthread

but failed to run because the library wasn’t found.

Referring to “have your system administrator add LIBDIR to ‘/etc/ld.so.conf’”, on Raspbian /usr/local/lib already is in /etc/ld.so.conf via /etc/ld.conf.so.d/libc.conf.

Running ./libtool –finish /usr/local/lib apparently runs ldconfig -n /usr/local/lib. And that doesn’t seem to accomplish anything. But running ldconfig with no options does get libtinylogger into the ld.so.cache, and all is fine.

I added ldconfig in src/Makefile.am to the install-exec-hook. If you are installing in a non-standard place this does no harm. If you are installing in /usr/local/bin, this actually gets the job done.

To verify that the library got into the ld.so cache, try: ldconfig -p | grep tinylogger

if it made it’s way into the cache, you will get:

    libtinylogger.so.0 (libc6,hard-float) => /usr/local/lib/libtinylogger.so.0
    libtinylogger.so (libc6,hard-float) => /usr/local/lib/libtinylogger.so

Other distros

If you want to use the library without using the above libtool suggestions…

Check /etc/ld.so.conf and /etc/ld.so.conf.d/ files. Make sure /usr/local/lib (or wherever you told configure to put it) is mentioned. If it isn’t, add a configuration file with the following contents to /etc/ld.so.conf.d, perhaps local-lib.conf.

# add /usr/local/lib to the configuration
/usr/local/lib