Missing .la files prevent claws-mail to be built

[Doug713705]

Hi all,

Since April 19th Pat decided to not ship anymore .la files in
Slackware packages (see http://www.slackware.com/changelog/current.php?cpu=x86_64).

This is probably a good idea but in several cases it may prevent some
packages from SBo to be built.

In my case the missing .la files in enchant and harfbuzz prevented me to
build the claws-mail package from SBo [1].

The only solution that came in my mind was to rebuild and reinstall the
enchant and harfbuzz packages from sources after the line
"rm -f $PKG/{,usr/}lib${LIBDIRSUFFIX}/*.la" has been removed from the
corresponding SlackBuilds (this solution induced some other problems
that will not discussed here).

As I understand it (I may be very wrong), to compile claws-mail without
using these .la files pkg-config must be used instead of libtool.

So I set the PKG_CONFIG variable to /usr/bin/pkg-config in the
claws-mail.SlackBuild but, despite that the PKG_CONFIG variable is
effectively reported in the Makefile and set to the good value, the
compilation still fails with an explicit error message telling that
/usr/lib64/libharfbuzz-icu.la does not exists

At this point I have no more dice and I am wondering if it is possible
to compile claws-mail without .la files and, if not, what is the next
step.

I know for sure that some other packages have the same problem and I
would appreciate to not have to recompile all Slackware packages to get
the .la file back.

Any advice about this problem is welcome :)

[Chris Vine]

On Sun, 27 May 2018 09:14:55 +0000 (UTC)

Post by Doug713705
Hi all,
Since April 19th Pat decided to not ship anymore .la files in
Slackware packages (see http://www.slackware.com/changelog/current.php?cpu=x86_64).
This is probably a good idea but in several cases it may prevent some
packages from SBo to be built.
In my case the missing .la files in enchant and harfbuzz prevented me to
build the claws-mail package from SBo [1].
The only solution that came in my mind was to rebuild and reinstall the
enchant and harfbuzz packages from sources after the line
"rm -f $PKG/{,usr/}lib${LIBDIRSUFFIX}/*.la" has been removed from the
corresponding SlackBuilds (this solution induced some other problems
that will not discussed here).
As I understand it (I may be very wrong), to compile claws-mail without
using these .la files pkg-config must be used instead of libtool.
So I set the PKG_CONFIG variable to /usr/bin/pkg-config in the
claws-mail.SlackBuild but, despite that the PKG_CONFIG variable is
effectively reported in the Makefile and set to the good value, the
compilation still fails with an explicit error message telling that
/usr/lib64/libharfbuzz-icu.la does not exists
At this point I have no more dice and I am wondering if it is possible
to compile claws-mail without .la files and, if not, what is the next
step.
I know for sure that some other packages have the same problem and I
would appreciate to not have to recompile all Slackware packages to get
the .la file back.
Any advice about this problem is welcome :)

You have an old home-compiled package left lying around with a
stale .la file in it referring to other (now non-existent) .la files.

slackware-current no longer installs any .la files in the /usr/lib[64]
and /lib[64] directories. The easiest thing is to delete all your own
stale .la files in those directories using 'rm *.la'. Your claws-mail
package should then compile.

[Doug713705]

Le 27-05-2018, Chris Vine nous expliquait dans

Post by Chris Vine
You have an old home-compiled package left lying around with a
stale .la file in it referring to other (now non-existent) .la files.

Oh yes, many of them !

Post by Chris Vine
slackware-current no longer installs any .la files in the /usr/lib[64]
and /lib[64] directories. The easiest thing is to delete all your own
stale .la files in those directories using 'rm *.la'. Your claws-mail
package should then compile.

Ok, your confirmed what Pat wrote in the changelog but I was afraid to
do so.

I removed all /usr/lib64/*.la file and all went Ok.

Thank you very much for your quick answer.