libntpc.so

[Richard Laager]

On 12/14/20 8:14 PM, Hal Murray via devel wrote:
> I think we should install such a file containing LIBDIR
> on systems where/etc/ld.so.conf.d/  is a directory.

No, please don't, for many reasons. If you attempt this, you're going to 
encounter a lot of pain points as you try to deal with exceptions for 
packaging scenarios (DESTDIR), non-system installs, etc.

If a distro isn't searching any /usr/local lib directory by default, any 
application with a shared library is going to have trouble. (Also, this 
is regardless of whether that application is using autotools, waf, or 
whatever.) Additionally, the distro is inherently inconsistent if they 
have /usr/local/bin in the PATH, but no /usr/local lib directory in the 
ld.so.conf search path. I'm perfectly content to tell people to 
configure their system in that case.

If we really want to do something to make that work out of the box, then 
I'd make the Python code search for the library in a fixed location 
(either instead of or in addition to the current behavior) and subst in 
LIBDIR. That way, the solution is application-local. Installing an 
application like NTPsec should not change global system state.

-- 
Richard