I am also having this problem I just wanted to add that on my machine if I use:
$ pkg-config --dump-personality Triplet: default DefaultSearchPaths: /usr/lib/pkgconfig /usr/share/pkgconfig SystemIncludePaths: /usr/include SystemLibraryPaths: /lib /lib/i386-linux-gnu /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu /lib/x86_64-linux-gnux32 /lib64 /libx32 /usr/lib /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnux32 /usr/lib64 /usr/libx32 As you can see, Triplet is "default" and there are only two dirs in DefaultSearchPath. There is a file installed on my machine at /usr/share/pkgconfig/personality.d/x86_64-linux-gnu.personality. The contents of this file are as follows: $cat /usr/share/pkgconfig/personality.d/x86_64-linux-gnu.personality Triplet: x86_64-linux-gnu DefaultSearchPaths: /usr/local/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/pkgconfig:/usr/local/lib/pkgconfig:/usr/local/share/pkgconfig:/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/pkgconfig:/usr/lib/pkgconfig:/usr/share/pkgconfig SystemIncludePaths: /usr/include SystemLibraryPaths: /lib:/lib/i386-linux-gnu:/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu:/lib/x86_64-linux-gnux32:/lib32:/libx32:/usr/lib:/usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu:/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu:/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnux32:/usr/lib32:/usr/libx32 Note that all the expected information is present. So it seems I have the correct file on my machine but pkg-config isn't "seeing" it for some reason. Pkg-config is version 1.8.1-1 and my architecture is amd64.