wxformbuilder not able to find libs?

[Marc Lanctot]

On Sat, 27 Jun 2009 04:26:17 -0700 (PDT)
Rajinder Yadav <devguy-DaQTI0RpDDMAvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org> wrote:

> 
> It seems the make file for wxformbuilder still needs work! There is
> no make install step.

What's its version number?

> To fix the problem, I had to define LD_LIBRARY_PATH to point to the
> runtime wxgtk+ and wxformbuilder libs ...starting to get an
> understanding how this works.
> 
> I also had to create sym-links to some xml files, if it was not for
> the descriptive error messages with path to file, I would not have
> figured out the last step.
> 
> I wonder how much time and energy is lost on incomplete steps, the
> developers must love to answer FAQ? Even reading the INSTALL notes
> didn't help me.

Welcome to the wonderful world of open-source software ;) These
are the kinds of things you should expect to put up with if the project
is still in alpha, beta, or is not at version 1.0 yet. And, some
projects are just better documented than others; after a slew of people
hop onto the mailing list to ask the same questions, programmers soon
learn the value of documentation. 

Anyway, the LD_LIBRARY_PATH is a common Unix/Linux thing (on other Unix
flavors it's known as SHARED_LIB, etc.), it's not tied to any particular
project. It's extra search paths for linked libraries, as you now know.
It's mostly used for when users want to install things and don't have
root access, which I always do because I have access to school machines
but no root. For example, I normally install things with a prefix
of /home/lanctot . So I have to put /home/lanctot/lib in
LD_LIBRARY_PATH and usually have to compile with -I/home/lanctot/inc. 

There is an alternative if you have root access. Add the link path
to /etc/ld.so.conf and then run ldconfig. Some distros even
put /usr/local/lib in there by default, and you probably should if
you're installing things from source with /usr/local prefix. 

I can't think of any reason to prefer one over the other, though I'm
sure there are reasons. man ldconfig :) Either way, it's not something
you'll find in an INSTALL file because it's "common knowledge". 

So this won't only fix your problems with wxforbuilder.. it will fix
all future problems too :) 

Marc
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