On Sat, Sep 14, 2013 at 06:32:07AM -0400, Nick Sabalausky wrote: > On Sat, 14 Sep 2013 00:34:07 -0700 > "H. S. Teoh" <hst...@quickfur.ath.cx> wrote: [...] > > If I have to install libraries not in the apt repository (or > > multiple conflicting versions of the same library), I tend to put it > > either under an entirely different PREFIX, preferably under a > > dedicated subtree for the app I'm trying to build > > I had no idea you could do that! That's fantastic: despite my > migration towards Linux, I had been worrying about the day I'd > inevitable have to deal with multiple versions of the same thing.
In spite of all my rants against autotools, it *does* let you do cool things like: ./configure --prefix=/path/to/my/dedicated/sandbox which, if things were properly put together, will setup the Makefile such that make install will install to /path/to/my/dedicated/sandbox instead of the usual system directories. Of course, then you need to setup $PATH and maybe a few other environment variables expected by the app to get things to work properly, but this is the way I usually like to install custom built-from-source apps. That way, should I want to uninstall it, I can just nuke the entire root directory dedicated for that app without damaging anything else. :) But wait, there's more... On Debian, a good number of library packages are actually *designed* to support installation of multiple versions simultaneously. Even fragile, sensitive giants like gcc that have an intricate web of library dependencies can have 4.6, 4.7, *and* 4.8 all installed together side-by-side (up to a certain point, of course). A good many libraries have been patched downstream by Debian developers to have proper soname correspondence with ABI changes, and the upstream version number is encoded into the package name (as opposed to just the package version number) so installing multiple versions of the same library is actually *officially* supported. So the above prefix trick is really only necessary if you're building the library yourself. > > > Hence my first comment: I prefer to just grab the Windows version > > > and run it in wine. That usually just works. > > > > I dunno, wine doesn't seem to like my GUI configuration (or lack > > thereof :-P). It just falters in its steps and gasps every now and > > then, that I don't trust that whatever program it's running is > > actually doing what it should be doing. I still rather build from > > source. > > > > I find GUI apps to be butt-ugly under wine ;) But often usable > otherwise (not that I've used it much so far). I suppose so. Well, fair enough. :) T -- They pretend to pay us, and we pretend to work. -- Russian saying