libgdk_pixbuf-2.0.la missing from packages

Note this breaks pretty much every gtk build...

Current work around - install from source package.

apt-get source libgdk-pixbuf2.0-0
cd gdk-pixbuf-2.22.0/
./configure --prefix=/usr
make
make install

The problem seems to be that the .la files are not correctly installed into the -dev package during package build. This can be easily fixed by applying the attached patch to the unpacked gdk-pixbuf-2.22.0 source tree:

apt-get source libgdk-pixbuf2.0-0
cd gdk-pixbuf-2.22.0/
patch -p1 < ../gdkpixbuff.diff
debuild -b -uc -us

You will then end up with a proper .deb package (e.g. libgdk-pixbuf2.0-dev_2.22.0-0ubuntu1_amd64.deb) which contains the correct files and can be installed as normal.

The patch provided by Matthew Mott fixed the problem for me. Hopefully it will be included in an update sometime soon.

I've published a fixed version of gdk-pixbuf in the DarkRadiant PPA:

https://launchpad.net/~orbweaver/+archive/darkradiant

Hopefully I've got the versioning correct so that it will supersede the official package but be superseded by future official updates.

For Natty, if the dependency stack isn't too deep, we should remove the .la files from packages depending on libgdk-pixbuf2.0-dev for preference. See:

  http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-files.html#s-libraries

(Of course, that's not to say that the .la can't be reintroduced to libgdk-pixbuf2.0-dev as a stopgap measure.)

I'm would be tempted to say that I'm against re-adding the .la file if removing .la file in the depending packages is not too painful.

Colin: do you have a list of these packages? So this could be coordinate with debian?

No, sorry, I don't. I assume you could generate it with a combination of grep-dctrl and the Contents files ...

There is a list of .la files generated daily here: http://release.debian.org/~aba/la/current.txt

Looking at it I see nothing related to gdk-pixbuf

@Alan: which application are you trying to compile?

Sorry, I can not remember exactly which package it was, perhaps some of the other watchers can remember what they had trouble with.

I am having trouble with building gnumeric via jhbuild...

No problem here to build gnumeric in a maveric or natty pbuilder

Could somebody try

grep pixbuf /usr/lib/*.la

and post the result here?

and also do a grep in the usr/lib directory of jhbuild?

We fixed the remaining packages which still refer to this .la, so we don't need to bring it back.