Re: use of libtool for linking executables - rpath problem

[Paul Davis]

>What is needed is a "database" which acts as a registry of installed
>packages.  This would be updatable by 'make install' as well as binary
>packaging tools.  

all of GNOME is now using pkg-config for this purpose.

>                  A tool would be provided to formulate the optimum
>-I, -L, and -llibs options required to build using a set of libraries.

pkg-config doesn't do that. its an almost impossible task unless you
rely on the package authors to be reasonable and sensible; if you do
that, then you don't need to do this anyway.

>The database would need to be distributable across multiple prefixes
>in order to handle the case where libraries are provided by the
>system, installed to a common local directory, and installed in a
>private directory.

pkg-config not only handles this, but even handles using packages that
are not yet even installed (merely built).

--p