How do I install this missing library 4802

Peter, I have to concur with Random Penguin, on this one: Please calm down a bit more, before replying. If you're just too frustrated, please just let someone else handle the inquiry. Some gruffness is grist for the Usenet old-fogy mill, but you've been making a habit of going over the line into needless personal abuse.

The result is that the people you're talking to fixate on the calumny, and don't hear the substance of what you're saying. Not good for anyone.

Returning to Random Penguin's portion of the post:

Hmm, it's been a while since I last had to find one. If you want something downloadable, you could do worse than the Linux Documentation Project's (LDP's) small-book-length "Guide" texts:

I notice that Machtelt "tille" Garrels has a text dated Sept. 2005 called "Introduction to Linux - A Hands-on Guide". I haven't read the text, but I do know tille from LDP, and she's a good writer.

"The Linux System Administrators' Guide" is linked from the same page, and is an old clbuttic -- but I notice that it, too, bears a 2005 revision date.

A "configure" script is a script with filename "configure" that is often included in a package of source code. It is designed to be parsed (read and interpreted) by a developers' utility called autoconf, which follows its instructions in examining your system to find out what type of system you operate and what software facilities it has, and re-writes the Makefile for that source code tree, accordingly.

The Makefile, in turn, is a set of instructions for a separate development utility called "make" (GNU make, in the case of Linux), which actually runs the steps of compiling and installing a piece of software provided in source code form.

So, the clbuttic set of steps you do in compiling (most) codebases from source code -- if everything's OK and nothing goes wrong -- is this:

$ .-configure # This is the autoconf step. You have to preface # the file to be executed by ".-" because "." (the # current directory) isn't automatically in the search # path for executables -- for good reasons beyond the # scope of this explanation. $ make # This is the actual compilation. It may take a long # time, depeding on what you're compiling. Lines that # say "Warning:" aren't necessarily worrisome, but ones # that say "Error:" indicate compile failure. $ make check # This step tends to be supported in GNU codebases only, # and makes the newly compiled app run through its set # of self-tests before you install it. $ make install # Only at this stage does the compiled application get # copied out of your compilation working directory # (the unpacked tarball), and installed into the # various places on your system that pieces go.

Backing up for a moment:

If you're brand-new to Linux, and find yourself immediately trying to compile a "missing library", I'll wager that you're probably (through no fault of your own) trying to solve the wrong problem. Compiling code from source is (as a general rule) something you do because you had to; because you couldn't find one of the better alternatives.

There's something you should be aware of about most computer geeks, and thus most Linux users: If you ask them how to solve a problem, and they decide to take an interest in your question, they will tend to answer it literally as posed. They might be wondering "Why would he want to do that?", but they'll almost never say so: Their buttumption is that you must have known what you wanted to do and why.

When I say "solving the wrong problem", what I mean in this instance is that you probably need help finding your distribution's binary package for some library. However, I really need to go re-read (if possible) some older postings in this thread before I can really say.

And, by the way:

Lose the atbreastude. Now. We've heard the sermon before, and the hypocrisy of your calling Peter T. Breuer names from behind a shield of self-righteousness just stinks on ice.

If you don't like a particular poster, we're glad to help you configure your newsreader's killfile to eliminate the nuisance (just as we'll be glad to help the other guy autoignore you, in return). But don't take pbuttive-aggressive personal shots at him, while professing to do it in the name of "beginners". Frankly, beginners deserve a lot better than that. I say that as someone who's spent a lot of his life helping Linux newcomers over the past twelve years. And you're out of line.

-- Cheers, Mark Moraes: "Usenet is not a right." Rick Moen Edward Vielmetti: "Usenet is a right, a left, a jab, The postman hits! You have new mail."