Re: why is gtk install so difficult?

[Melvin Hadasht <melvin hadasht free fr>]

Hi,

> On 2003.10.20 21:40 Michael Torrie wrote:
> 
> > The problems you are experiencing are not GTK problems per se.  They are
> > build environment problems.   

Michael is right.

> My distribution was originally Red Hat 6.0, now Red Hat 6.2.

Maybe you have some problems because you have an old distribution
and many software evolved since. If you need to try newer software
without sacrifying the stability of your original sofware, I'd suggest
making use of the $prefix stuff.  For everything you compile yourself
or you want to try, use a special prefix (e.g. $HOME/tests/).
If you're satisfied, recompile with a /usr/local prefix so the users
will benefit from newer versions. There will always be the distribution
specific software in /usr. /usr should be the most stable versions.

> Compiler: egcs-2.91.66
> Binutils: (sorry, forgot how to check that!)
as --version (or gas)
> ldd: ldd (GNU libc) 2.1.3
> pkg-config: 0.15.0
> glib: 1.2.10 and 2.2
> atk: 1.0.1a
> pango: 1.0.1a
> 
> The glib 2.2 I compiled from source.

I'd suggest again to use newer software (and compiler?).
The currently release stable versions are:
glib 2.2.3
Atk 1.2.0
pango 1.2.5
gtk 2.2.4
Yours seem quite old

I'd first try to use the distribution software packaging method.
They correcly handle dependencies. Recent distro package 
management software are really user friendly (huge difference
between Ditro 6.x series and the current ones)

If you want to compile the software yourself, take care about
dependencies, and especially prefix. Problems arise in general
only if you install some libs in some prefix while the other ones
which depend on them on other prefixes. In that case, you
have to know how to use LD_LIBRARY_PATH, LDFLAGS, CPPFLAGS
PKG_CONFIG_PATH. 

For example, I installed my SuSE 6.2 few years ago. But in fact,
I always compile source myself, and as I always install stuff
in the default prefix when compiling (/usr/local), I only need
to do 
./configure
make
make install (as root).

but also, I stick to the quite recent version of each major library
and development tools. Experience has shown that recent stable 
versions are 99% really stable.

> Note that I'm installing GTK 2 along with GTK 1 (the original)
> per several "experienced" users' request, because we wanted to
> test some of our GTK programs with GTK 2.

Gtk1.2x and Gtk2.2.x can coexist without any problem even if
you install them using the same prefix. You can consider them
as unrelated libraries.


-- 
Melvin Hadasht