Re: why is gtk install so difficult?

[Chad A Daelhousen <cd9 cse Buffalo EDU>]

At Wed, Oct 15, 2003 at 09:26:46AM -0400, Paul Davis wrote:
> >At Tue, Oct 14, 2003 at 11:47:12PM -0600, Michael Torrie wrote:
> >> All the compilation problems I've seen lately on this list stem from
> >> users not understanding what happens when you  install to /usr/local and
> >> try to use pkg-config without telling it to look for your .pc files in
> >> /usr/local/lib/pkgconfig (it defaults to /usr/lib/pkgconfig).
> >
> >That suggests pkg-config needs ${PREFIX}/lib/pkgconfig included in its
> >default path. It's not user error if a piece of software doesn't pay
> >attention to where it installed itself (or was asked to install itself).
> 
> that's not what is happening in such situations. linux (and unix in
> general) has been plagued by two different installation
> conventions. "system installs" go into /usr, "user installs" go into
> /usr/local. with the dawn of package systems like RPM, deb etc., most
> of them default to an install in /usr. if the user then installs
> something from a source tarball, it normally ends up in
> /usr/local. this is modelled on some old ideas about backups, system
> reinstalls and so forth that often no longer apply.

Oh, I misunderstood the problem. /usr/bin/pkg-config is _still there_,
oblivious to /usr/local/*, and run by default because it's earlier in
$PATH.

In that case, is there any situation in which /usr/bin/pkg-config should
NOT look in /usr/local/lib/pkgconfig? Havoc, as maintainer, what are
your thoughts? Should this be changed?

-- 
Chad Daelhousen
My opinions are my own, until UB purchases my soul.