15.1.1 Information sources

Once it is clear that a new port is necessary, you’ll generally need the following information:

canonical system name

You need the output of config.guess for this system, so that you can make changes to the libtool configuration process without affecting other systems.

man pages for ld and cc

These generally describe what flags are used to generate PIC, to create shared libraries, and to link against only static libraries. You may need to follow some cross references to find the information that is required.

man pages for ld.so, rtld, or equivalent

These are a valuable resource for understanding how shared libraries are loaded on the system.

man page for ldconfig, or equivalent

This page usually describes how to install shared libraries.

output from ls -l /lib /usr/lib

This shows the naming convention for shared libraries on the system, including which names should be symbolic links.

any additional documentation

Some systems have special documentation on how to build and install shared libraries.

If you know how to program the Bourne shell, then you can complete the port yourself; otherwise, you’ll have to find somebody with the relevant skills who will do the work. People on the libtool mailing list are usually willing to volunteer to help you with new ports, so you can send the information to them.

To do the port yourself, you’ll definitely need to modify the libtool.m4 macros in order to make platform-specific changes to the configuration process. You should search that file for the PORTME keyword, which will give you some hints on what you’ll need to change. In general, all that is involved is modifying the appropriate configuration variables (see section libtool script contents).

Your best bet is to find an already-supported system that is similar to yours, and make your changes based on that. In some cases, however, your system will differ significantly from every other supported system, and it may be necessary to add new configuration variables, and modify the ltmain.in script accordingly. Be sure to write to the mailing list before you make changes to ltmain.in, since they may have advice on the most effective way of accomplishing what you want.

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