How to check that you have dependancies when compiling programs from source

karuna-bdc · 06-30-2009, 10:21 PM

Hey all,

you know when you want to compile apps from source and in the readme it says that it needs such and such installed in order to compile from source, how do you check your system to see if the dependencies are already present in your system before hunting for them on the net?

pixellany · 06-30-2009, 10:25 PM

Well, there is always the "find" command....

And you can certainly just attempt to compile and let it tell you what's missing..

Uncle_Theodore · 06-30-2009, 10:29 PM

Strictly speaking, the configure script is supposed to check all dependencies and find them. But sometimes it misses things.
Compiling from source is somewhat of an art, so to speak.

It's much better to install from your distribution packages.

knudfl · 07-01-2009, 12:18 AM

And :
'dpkg --get-selections | grep dev > dev-packages.txt

will make a list with all installed libs, which can
be used for compiling.

You shouldn't need to search the net for packages
( never ), but use Synaptic or apt-get for that.
.....

karuna-bdc · 07-01-2009, 05:55 AM

Thaaanks, I dunno, I just wanted to know how it works just for my own knowledge, apt-get is great for my uses, but Just wanted to know how to work it out if you only had source code