configure 7474

As I indicated in my posting, I solved the problem of locating pkg-config by setting the environment variables PKGCONFIG and PKGCONFIGPATH tohome-allan-PIC-LINUX-pkg-config-0.20-pkg-config andhome-allan-PIC-LINUX-pkg-config-0.20respectively. The problem is the following error message:

Package gtk+-2.0 was not found in the pkg-config search path. Perhaps you should add the directory containing `gtk+-2.0.pc' to the PKGCONFIGPATH environment variable No package 'gtk+-2.0' found consider adjusting the PKGCONFIGPATH environment variable if your libraries are in a nonstandard prefix so pkg-config can find them.

The directory in which I am running configure is:home-allan-PIC-LINUX-gtk+extra-2.1.1

I tried changing PKGCONFIGPATH with export PKGCONFIGPATH=-home-allan-PIC-LINUX-pkg-config-0.20:-home-allan-PIC-LINUX-gtk+extra-2.1.1 but I got the same error message.

So, this falls under the category of receiving an error message that I don't know how to respond to. With these environment variables in effect, I now change directory tohome-allan-PIC-LINUX-gpsim-0.21.11 and execute configure and instead get the error message: linking with GTK+ 2.x checking for pkg-config... no configure: error: Cannot find pkg-config

In this case, it appears that configure has no trouble finding the gtk+2.x it is looking for, but can't find pkg-config, even though I've set the environment variables PKGCONFIG and PKGCONFIGPATH. In other words, it is exactly the opposite behavior to that which configure displayed in the directoryhome-allan-PIC-LINUX-gtk+extra-2.1.1.

I submit that such a conundrum cannot be resolved on general principles, which all respondents so far seem to have tried to do. It can only be resolved either by actually knowing something about the particular packages I'm working with (i.e. gpsim and gtk+extra-2.1.1) OR by knowing how to read the configure files and figure out what they are really doing.

I would be glad to know what to do about this particular problem, with these particular packages, but the more fundamental question I am asking is how one learns to make sense of configure files. I can barely make sense of makefiles while I have always found configure files completely inscrutable: I can neither read them nor write them. I would like to remove this blemish on my computer literacy.

Regarding my system, I'll tell you it is RedHat 7.1 if everyone promises not to tell me to upgrade. The insight that pkg-config might refer to the ambient RedHat package system, with rpm files and where they get written, is also helpful. If that is really what is required, it tells me that I don't want to mess with these packages. I want stuff that I can put in my own directories and compile without being root, and only become root when I actually have to use them to control a PIC device, if then. I realize that rpm's and things are very convenient for distributions but I like to have more control over what I put in my system and where. -- Ignorantly, * Disclaimer: I am a guest and *not* a member of the MIT CSAIL. My actions and * comments do not reflect in any way on MIT. Also, I am nowhere near Boston.