Hi all -

I've been working on a BLFS-systemd-201807012-dev version and have encountered this problem a few times (particularly when dealing with anything that wants to interact with Kerberos)

Many times in the in the install recipes I'm told to move the libraries to /lib from /usr/lib to make them available when /usr is not mounted, this makes it so when I go to new install new packages that they can't find the .so unless I go back and reinstall (kerberos), waiting to move the libraries until the new package is installed so they can be found and then moving them.

I've noticed that when making the new links to the moved libraries often multiple libraries are linked to one single .so file. How does this work?

How come new packages can't read the linked file properly? (it seems to me probably the same reason when I try to 'ls /foo.so' it replies 'not found')

Is there a way to force new packages to read the links so it knows where the libraries have been moved to -- so i don't have to go back back and reinstall the offending package? (i thought about making copies of the moved .so's but i don't think this the proper way.)

I have a general understanding of the difference between hard and soft links and how they are represented to the file system, but what are the particular practical reasons for using hard vs soft links?

Thanks!

spencer

All the symlinks have to do with the way libraries are named in software. in a library foo.so.3.4.5
They mean (usually)
3 = a compatibility break from foo.so.2.x
4 = feature enhancement over foo.so.3.3.x
5 = a patch level or bug fix on foo.so.3.4.

Nobody, afaik, addresses the patch level; foo.so.3 suffices, unless you need the feature enhancements. When you run ldconfig, it sorts all those symlinks anyhow.

LFS is correct about /lib being supposed to be used for boot. But unix in ways is very last millenium - nobody had a terabyte hard disk then. If /usr doesn't have it's own partition (99.9999% of cases) it doesn't matter a hoot. Nowadays, my /home is bigger than my /, and that goes for most folks.

thanks for that! I kind of thought that about the reason for moving to /lib. Is there a particular reason when I go to build new packages that are looking for the libraries in the original /usr/lib/ location that they don't like following the link?