Re: Install to lib64

[Bob Proulx]

Jason Sewall wrote:
> I'm maintaining an autotools-configured project, and I've noticed that
> the make install resulting from my build (on x86_64 arch, linux) puts
> generated libraries in prefix/lib instead of prefix/lib64 - is there
> something I should do differently, or is the the expected behaviour?

That is the expected behavior.  On normal/pure 64-bit systems that is
usually the normal expected location.  On my 64-bit system lib and not
lib64 is the correct location since there isn't any 32-bit version.
64-bit systems are first class citizens too.

If you need it in a specific location then you should tell it that at
configure time.  You can always set up a site specific configuration
so that it will default to a particular location for you on your
system if you desire.

The locations that the autotools default to using are the GNU standard
locations.  The GNU system is designed to be its own system and it has
its own set of standards.  This has been around a long time and
predates both POSIX and the newer FHS.  But the autotools are very
configurable and everyone is free to set up installation locations as
they see fit.

The typical procedure for packagers is to set any system specific
locations on the configure command line but to codify those locations
in the package build script.  This is usually done by package
management systems in different ways.  On RPM based systems (e.g. Red
Hat, SuSE) look at using the %configure macro which is designed to do
this for you easily.  On DPKG based systems (e.g. Debian, Ubuntu) this
is usually done in the rules file.  The syntax and interface is
standardized and well known.

Bob