>
> > I'm a bit confused here and hoping that someone from MandrakeSoft can
> > answer this.
> >
> > It appears the -devel packages now contain the package libraries rather
> > than just header files? Normally after an install I go through my system
> > and remove all the -devel packages that I don't expect to be compiling
> > applications against. This frees up a *lot* of space on my drive.
> >
> > But now it seems that I have to keep all those devel packages installed,
> > even if I don't want the header files all over my system?
> >
> > Please let me know if this is true or if I'm drunk. Why would such a
> > decision be made? Most people don't want/need the header files
> > cluttering up their disks.
>
> not true
>
runtime packages are expected to include versioned libraries (linfoo.so.X.Y.Z)
and development packages should include plain library (libfoo.so) so
that -lfoo works. But libfoo.so will most probably be just a symlink to
libfoo.so.X.Y.Z.
You can remove libfoo.so and it should not (generally) impact your programs
that should be looking for versioned libraries.
-andrej
