Thanks for the bugreport, Andreas.

(In reply to Andreas Grünbacher from comment #0)
> Description of problem:
> When a package uses prefix /usr, either by default through
> "AC_PREFIX_DEFAULT(/usr)" or explicitly by "./configure --prefix=/usr",
> libdir is correctly set to /usr/lib64 on 64-bit platforms (see bug 1196340).

On _our_ 64-bit platforms;  Because its our RPM policy to install libraries
this way.  Other distros do it differently.  Yes, it is better to help
developers with /usr prefix (to e.g. try to approach
what would have been done automatically by %configure).

> This does not happen with the default prefix /usr/local though. This could
> either be addresses by providing a /usr/local/share/config.site script

With (default) --prefix=/usr/local I'm not that sure.  Do we have some policy
in Fedora how libraries should be installed under /usr/local?

> or by fixing the whole libdir mess in autoconf itself.

Without configuration files, autoconf would have to detect what approach
particular policy distribution chosen (even non FHS compliant e.g.).

> How reproducible:
> Always on 64-bit systems that don't have a custom
> /usr/local/share/config.site script.

.. or /usr/local/etc/config.site.

--
FHS says that if {,/usr}/lib<suff> exists, same must exist under
/usr/local/lib<suff>.  Also 'filesystem' owns those directories.  So I tend to
agree with /usr/local/share/config.site.  Lets give this ticket a bit of time
for discussion.

I think it is stupid of autoconf to not detect when a distro uses lib64; that would save us from all the config.site mess.

There are some config.site examples in doc/autoconf.texi in the autoconf repo, btw.

Hms, looking at Fedora Packaging Guidelines, packagers are not allowed to
install files below /usr/local, sorry.

> I think it is stupid of autoconf to not detect when a distro uses lib64;
> that would save us from all the config.site mess.

Putting the blame on autoconf easy.  What heuristic do you propose?  Anyway,
files under /usr/local seem to be sort of admin's playground.
I don't think we want to change the defaults for all administrators regardless
of their own policy below /usr/local.

What about making the default /usr/share/config.site more friendly with
/usr/local/share/config.site path, e.g. to allow you to copy (or symlink)
those two files?

Pavel

> What about making the default /usr/share/config.site more friendly with
> /usr/local/share/config.site path, e.g. to allow you to copy (or symlink)
> those two files?

What do you instead think of a mechanism that allows to tweak autoconf's defaults globally rather than per prefix; a global config.site script? That would need to happen upstream though.

(In reply to Andreas Gruenbacher from comment #4)
> > What about making the default /usr/share/config.site more friendly with
> > /usr/local/share/config.site path, e.g. to allow you to copy (or symlink)
> > those two files?
>
> What do you instead think of a mechanism that allows to tweak autoconf's
> defaults globally rather than per prefix; a global config.site script?
> That would need to happen upstream though.

While looking at bug #1158915, I was thinking about something like
'config.global' (to configure all the (newly) generated 'configure' scripts,
not autoconf itself).  But I have been reluctant to propose some new feature
upstream without a good reason.

The thing is that we (usually?) want have config.site per prefix.  After
such change we would tend to have something like:

  $ cat /usr/share/autoconf/config.global
  test "$libdir" = '${exec_prefix}/lib' && libdir='${exec_prefix}/lib64'

But I'm not convinced we really want to change this for all possible
prefixes..  and cross-compilation, and..

I (mostly) agree with you on the particular /usr/local/lib{,64} case, but I
feel even this is controversial (because there are definitely many people who
do not respect FHS below /usr/local on Fedora/RHEL, because they simply don't
have to care about multilib) and I don't feel to be very motivated to push
upstream to accept such idea to even break working user scenarios in Fedora..

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