I am having major problems getting a few programs to recognize library dependencies that i just installed.

the first program is Gnutella. I ran ./configure and I got a message stating that libxml2 2.4.19 or later needs to be installed. So, i downloaded the appropriate tar.gz, and installed it. No problem. However, after i install, Gnutella's ./configure wont recognize it.

- I've tried running ldconfig . Same problem.

- I've tried running updatedb . It did something, but problem remains.

- I've edited /etc/ld.so.conf to reflect the locations of lib files. The ./configure still doesnt see the libraries.

Anything else i should be doing?

Where did it install libxml to ? If you compiled it as a user, it might have placed it in /usr/local/lib and it might need to also be linked from /usr/lib or vice verse these ?

i installed as root and it appears to have installed to /usr/local/lib/

How do i link and what is the significance of linking libraries? I take it this isnt done by default....

Try this as root:

cd /usr/lib
ln -s /usr/local/lib/libxml-filename libxml-filename

And that should create the link and then test your ./configure to check to see if it finds it this go round.

ok, from usr/lib, as root, i linked libxml2.a but not help... there are also files with .a
.la
.so
.so.2
.so.2.4.22

should i use one of them? this is really confusing. I've tried checking out different posts dealing with libraries and most made it seem like all you had to do was ./configure
make
make install
ldconfig
and you were done.

You'll want to link the .so files as well, those are the lib files.

ok i get :

ln: 'libxml2.so': File exists

There appears to be files in both /usr/local/lib/ and /usr/lib/ pretaining to libxml2

This sucks. I've tried installing Gnuttella, Eterm, and Enlightenment and each time i downloaded needed libraries and each time the ./configure doesnt recognize them once they are installed. I installed gaim without a problem.

what am i doing wrong?