Bug 24199

Summary: RH7 gcc/egcs doesn't automatically look in /usr/X11R6/lib.
Product: [Retired] Red Hat Linux Reporter: Commerce Department <software>
Component: gccAssignee: Jakub Jelinek <jakub>
Status: CLOSED NOTABUG QA Contact: David Lawrence <dkl>
Severity: medium Docs Contact:
Priority: medium    
Version: 7.0   
Target Milestone: ---   
Target Release: ---   
Hardware: i386   
OS: Linux   
Whiteboard:
Fixed In Version: Doc Type: Bug Fix
Doc Text:
Story Points: ---
Clone Of: Environment:
Last Closed: 2001-01-17 06:56:14 UTC Type: ---
Regression: --- Mount Type: ---
Documentation: --- CRM:
Verified Versions: Category: ---
oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team: --- Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:

Description Commerce Department 2001-01-17 06:56:11 UTC 
I'm not sure that this is an actual bug, but here goes anyway.

I was compiling wv (Word Viewer), which means doing a  ./configure, which
reported that parts of the graphics libraries were missing.  So I looked
back at the output of .configure, and noticed that some things which were
present were not being detected.

Upon investigation, it turned out that the small programs created by
./configure were not compiling properly, because the linker wasn't finding
libX11.a.

Using gcc -v, I see that "collect2" is being called with lots of arguments,
and the directories which ARE looked through are:
 /lib  /usr/lib/gcc-lib/i386-redhat-linux/2.96  
/usr/lib/gcc-lib/i386-redhat-linux/2.96/../../../     /lib  /usr/lib  
/usr/local/lib   and  /usr/i386-redhat-linux/lib

The directory /usr/X11R6/lib is not included in those automatically
searched through, so I'd assume that compiling any X program might be
problematic.

Manually compiling with  -L/usr/X11R6/lib worked.

My first question is where  gcc/egcs obtains the default list of
directories which it passes on to collect2.  Are these set at compile time,
or do they come from a file?

From what I can see, it seems that adding  -L/usr/X11R6/lib to 
/usr/lib/gcc-lib/i386-redhat-linux/2.96/specs is a workaround to get the
desired result, but I'm not sure if this is the best way to do it.

The $64,000 question I guess is whether gcc/egcs *should* automatically
include an X11 directory.  Perhaps include -L/usr/X11, and have /usr/X11 as
a symlink to the current version... 

Interestingly the /etc/ld.so.conf already contains the  /usr/X11R6
directory.

The machine in question was clean installed with RH7 (intel), and the same
thing happened with both gcc and egcs.  I've recently upgraded gcc/cpp etc
to  2.96-69, but no change with this particular problem.

cheers,
/\ndy
Comment 1 Jakub Jelinek 2001-01-17 10:07:15 UTC 
No version of gcc ever automatically looked into /usr/X11R6/lib.
It is the sole responsibility of the configure script to add that to LDFLAGS
or other variables.
Comment 2 Commerce Department 2001-01-17 23:30:05 UTC 
Ok.  Thanks for the prompt reply.

I assume that adding an X11 library directory to the default -L list would
probably cause some subtle problems for someone somewhere, and although I'd
reckon that on balance that it would be an overall good thing, it would be a
judgement call. At the end of the day though, that call isn't mine to make; it's
yours, and so fair enough with what you decided.

As to my other question, I assume that the default list of library and include
directories is set at compile time, and the only config file which is consulted
which can override them is the "specs" file, and from what I can see, the
"specs" file usually doesn't have any extras in it, though it can be modified to
by the end-user (or end-system admin) do so.  Yes?

cheers,
/\ndy