xfce 4.2.1 packages available

[Michael Schwendt]

On Mon, 21 Mar 2005 09:42:42 -0700, Kevin Fenzi wrote:

> The xfce packages that have ldconfig in the specs are: 
> 
> dbh
> libxfce4mcs
> libxfce4util
> libxfcegui4
> xffm
> xfprint
> 
> The first 4 have files in /usr/lib/ and I think the ldconfig is fine
> there. 

Yes, for DSOs in /usr/lib (but not limited to /usr/lib), ldconfig
maintains the run-time linker cache.
 
> The question is xffm and xfprint. 
> 
> I have confirmed that xffm works properly without the .la/a files and
> without the ldconfig, as does xfprint. They open their plugins
> directly, and thus ldconfig isn't needed. 
> 
> As to the .la/a files, I see no diffrence at all with the depends
> required. I am inclined to just leave them in there since they don't
> seem to cause any dependency problems and are very small. 
> In addition the rpms in fc3 shipped the .la files, so if someone was
> depending on/using them they might not be too happy with them being
> removed. 

They cannot cause any dependency problems, since their content is not
analysed by rpmbuild. Libtool archive (.la) files can cause dependency
trouble when they are used at build-time.

> Does that sound reasonable?
> 
> If so, I will commit my xfprint and xffm specs with ldconfig removed. 

I don't care that much that I feel the need to try to convince you. I've
made my obligatory comments on static archives in plugins directories,
and you are free to disagree.

The .a files are really just the .so libraries in another form for
static linking. They are not needed at run-time, because the .so plugins
are loaded dynamically, the static archives in the plugins
directories are useless and not needed, and your packages don't provide
an API for them with which the .a versions of the plugins could be used.

I stick to my view that both .a and .la files should not be included in
the plugins directories. Certainly the static archives should be deleted
as they only increase package size regardless of how small they might
be. It will happen again in the future that either me (or somebody else)
will point out that static archives in plugin directories are not
needed.

[xffm package]

* In there, I don't see any static archives in the plugins directory
and not in the %_libdir/xfce4/xffm sub-directory either.

* But I see lots of *.so links in /usr/lib, which are usually only
needed at build-time and therefore moved into -devel packages. In case
these links are loaded at run-time, the application ought to load the
versioned DSOs instead, e.g. libxffm_actions.so.1 instead of
libxffm_actions.so

* Which package includes the directory /usr/lib/xfce4/xffm/?