[ltt-dev] UST usability nit

[compudj@krystal.dyndns.org (Mathieu Desnoyers)]

* Pierre-Marc Fournier (pierre-marc.fournier at polymtl.ca) wrote:
> On 08/10/2010 10:06 AM, Mathieu Desnoyers wrote:
>> Hi Pierre-Marc,
>>
>> Just tried UST on my machine and ran into the basic deployment nit:
>> ldconfig is not executed by the make install script, so usttrace could
>> not find the shared object. There was a message saying that in the log
>> file, but this can be a major inconvenience for new users.
>>
>> Can you add a ldconfig execution to the make install script ?
>
> Isn't the standard with automake-built projects is to let the user run  
> ldconfig by himself? The installation instructions for ust mention the  
> need to run ldconfig after installation, and in my mind, making the  
> install script run ldconfig on the user's system is taking too much  
> liberty and too surprising. I'll be convinced otherwise if you can  
> provide examples of notable projects that do so.

Looking around, here is what some other projects do:
(http://osdir.com/ml/linux.drivers.gnokii/2003-07/msg00062.html)

So then let's settle for having

make install

print a message at the end, e.g.:

"Note: You may need to run ldconfig on your system."

We can assume that the average user will expect that

./configure
make
make install

will do the job for a userspace application. So we should tell them if a
supplementary step is needed. Again, it's in the spirit of making
adoption as easy and smooth as possible for the user.

Thanks,

Mathieu

>
> Thanks.
>
> pmf
>

-- 
Mathieu Desnoyers
Operating System Efficiency R&D Consultant
EfficiOS Inc.
http://www.efficios.com