Re: some general help needed

[Ralf Wildenhues]

* Richard Ash wrote on Sat, Aug 16, 2008 at 01:49:09PM CEST:
> Don't get me wrong, using libtool to link against an uninstalled copy of
> a libtool library is fine. The problem is when libfoo uses libtool, and
> then I want to modify my autoconf-only package (which I can't convert to
> automake/libtool because it is a collaborative project, and Makefile.in
> is distinctly custom) to link against the uninstalled copy of libfoo.

For what it's worth, you should be able to use libtool without using
automake.  And you should be able to choose whether to have your in-tree
libtool (created by configure) or require an installed /usr/bin/libtool
(which is present on most GNU/Linux distributions).

If you have questions regarding this, or issues, we'd be interested to
hear (and fix bugs).

> Because I'm not using libtool .la files are more or less unusable, so I
> have to go poking around to see where .a files might have been put, and
> code those paths in to my configure script. When libfoo upgrades, I have
> a strong chance of breakage. As one document put it, if you are trying
> to link against the output of libool without using libtool, you are
> rather on your own.

There is some truth to that, yes.

Hope that helps.

Cheers,
Ralf