[MPlayer-dev-eng] configure issue

[Fredrik Kuivinen]

On Wed, Mar 20, 2002 at 02:51:26PM -0500, D Richard Felker III wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 20, 2002 at 08:16:19PM +0100, Alex Beregszaszi wrote:
> > > What about the -rpath option to ld? If we add "-rpath /usr/local/lib" in the
> > > link stage the executable will search in /usr/local/lib even if /usr/local/lib
> > > isn't in /etc/ld.so.conf or LD_LIBRARY_PATH. If we do this the ldd test won't
> > > be necessary.
> > 
> > This isn't the question. The question is about running mplayer.
> > If the libs which are linked with mplayer arent placed into the path (ld.so.conf)
> > or into LD_LIBRARY_PAT, than mplayer will fail execution.
> 
> IMHO it's not the responsibility of apps to work around a broken os
> install. If /usr/local/lib is missing from ld.so.conf, this needs to
> be fixed, not worked around. If you're installing your libs in a
> strange location you should either add that to ld.so.conf or use
> LD_LIBRARY_PATH yourself, but its better not to do such a thing in the
> first place.
>

Users can't change /etc/ld.so.conf. If I want to install some application, such
as mplayer, as an ordinary user on a system where I don't have root access and
this application requires a shared library I would prefer that -rpath was used
during the link stage rather than that I had to mess with LD_LIBRARY_PATH.

What if this library is only used by one application? Why should I add the path
to LD_LIBRARY_PATH then? 

There might be valid reason for people to install libraries in "strange"
locations. (Users, with write access only to their home directories, is only
one example.) 

David Barr has some interesting thoughts about LD_LIBRARY_PATH and ld.so.conf,
at least some of it is relevant in this discussion. Read it at: 
http://www.visi.com/~barr/ldpath.html

/ Fredrik