How to fix common compiling problems in Linux

In a previous post, I gave you a little intro to compiling software from source code in Linux. What I might not have mentioned is that it does not always go smoothly without a hitch. If you are on a short timeline with your server and need software X immediately and building from source is your only option, you should know how to fix common problems.

One common errors that usually occurs during the “configure” stage is a missing library or program. If you get errors saying that a certain file or library could not be found, you most likely need to install it. In the easiest situations, finding the needed software package is just a matter of searching for the name. If it happens to be libopenal, you would just search for the right package and install the development version of it.

In other cases, you might have to search for the library within a package (i.e. libsuchandsuch.so.1). Depending on your distribution, there are package searching tools available online, or you can just search Google (or your preferred search engine) with the library name and the name of your distribution. With any luck, the next time you run configure, it will compile without any errors.

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