Hi, I made the following modification in my Makefile posted in the previous mail( I looked at the Makefile generated by configure and picked the ideas from there) libtool --tag=CC --mode=link $(CC) $(GST_INCLUDE_DIR) $(GLIB_INCLUDE_DIR) -o playbin playbin.c  $(GST_LIB_DIR) $(GLIB_LIB_DIR) $(GST_GLIB_LIBS) -pthread and this is the command that runs at the prompt. gcc -I/users/rajesh/gstreamer_build/GST/include/gstreamer-0.10/ -I/usr/include/libxml2/ -I/users/rajesh/gstreamer_build/GLIB/include/glib-2.0 -I/users/rajesh/gstreamer_build/GLIB/lib/glib-2.0/include -o playbin playbin.c  -L/users/rajesh/gstreamer_build/GST/lib -L/users/rajesh/gstreamer_build/GLIB/lib/ /users/rajesh/gstreamer_build/GST/lib/<a href="http://libgstreamer-0.10.so" target="_blank">libgstreamer-0.10.so</a> -L/users/rajesh/gstreamer_build/GLIB/lib /users/rajesh/gstreamer_build/GLIB/lib/<a href="http://libgobject-2.0.so" target="_blank">libgobject-2.0.so</a> /users/rajesh/gstreamer_build/GLIB/lib/<a href="http://libgthread-2.0.so" target="_blank">libgthread-2.0.so</a> -lrt /users/rajesh/gstreamer_build/GLIB/lib/<a href="http://libgmodule-2.0.so" target="_blank">libgmodule-2.0.so</a> -ldl /users/rajesh/gstreamer_build/GLIB/lib/<a href="http://libglib-2.0.so" target="_blank">libglib-2.0.so</a> /usr/lib/libxml2.so -lpthread -lz -lm -pthread -Wl,--rpath -Wl,/users/rajesh/gstreamer_build/GST/lib -Wl,--rpath -Wl,/users/rajesh/gstreamer_build/GLIB/lib -Wl,--rpath -Wl,/users/rajesh/gstreamer_build/GST/lib -Wl,--rpath -Wl,/users/rajesh/gstreamer_build/GLIB/lib That means make is some how resolving the library paths and setting them to user defined locations rather than system specified paths. I read somewhere that -Wl,--rpath results in hardcoding of the library locations and hence  the implementation is not portable. Can somebody please explain, what exactly happened when I included the libtool --tag=CC --mode=link ? Now if I do $ldd ./playbin         libgstreamer-0.10.so.0 => /users/rajesh/gstreamer_build/GST/lib/libgstreamer-0.10.so.0 (0x005a1000)         libgobject-2.0.so.0 => /users/rajesh/gstreamer_build/GLIB/lib/libgobject-2.0.so.0 (0x00e5b000)         libgthread-2.0.so.0 => /users/rajesh/gstreamer_build/GLIB/lib/libgthread-2.0.so.0 (0x00ead000)         librt.so.1 => /lib/tls/librt.so.1 (0x00111000)         libgmodule-2.0.so.0 => /users/rajesh/gstreamer_build/GLIB/lib/libgmodule-2.0.so.0 (0x00125000)         libdl.so.2 => /lib/libdl.so.2 (0x008c9000)         libglib-2.0.so.0 => /users/rajesh/gstreamer_build/GLIB/lib/libglib-2.0.so.0 (0x002a8000)         libxml2.so.2 => /usr/lib/libxml2.so.2 (0x07d22000)         libpthread.so.0 => /lib/tls/libpthread.so.0 (0x009ba000)         libz.so.1 => /usr/lib/libz.so.1 (0x008cf000)         libm.so.6 => /lib/tls/libm.so.6 (0x008a4000)         libc.so.6 => /lib/tls/libc.so.6 (0x00778000)         /lib/ld-linux.so.2 (0x0075b000) All of them have the specified paths Regards Rajesh <div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, Dec 23, 2008 at 11:57 AM, Rajesh K <<a href="mailto:gstdoubts@gmail.com" target="_blank">gstdoubts@gmail.com</a>> wrote: <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">Hi, I have installed the glib and gstreamer-0.10.21 in /users/rajesh/gstreamer_build/GLIB and /users/rajesh/gstreamer_build/GSt respectively I am trying to build the helloworld example in gstreamer-0.10.21/tests/examples/manual/ I have written my own make file as follows. where $HOME is /users/rajesh/ MAKEFILE **************************************************************************************** CC = gcc GLIB_INCLUDE_DIR =-I/users/rajesh/gstreamer_build/GLIB/include/glib-2.0  -I/users/rajesh/gstreamer_build/GLIB/lib/glib-2.0/include GLIB_LIB_DIR = -L/users/rajesh/gstreamer_build/GLIB/lib/ GST_INCLUDE_DIR=-I$(HOME)/gstreamer_build/GST/include/gstreamer-0.10/ -I/usr/include/libxml2/ GST_LIB_DIR=-L$(HOME)/gstreamer_build/GST/lib PKG_CONFIG_PATH=$(HOME)/gstreamer_build/GST/lib/pkgconfig/ GST_GLIB_LIBS= -lgstreamer-0.10 -lgobject-2.0 -lgthread-2.0 -lrt -lgmodule-2.0 -ldl -lglib-2.0 -lxml2 all: clean playbin playbin:         $(CC) $(GST_INCLUDE_DIR) $(GLIB_INCLUDE_DIR) -o playbin playbin.c  $(GST_LIB_DIR) $(GLIB_LIB_DIR) $(GST_GLIB_LIBS) -pthread clean:         rm -rf playbin *.o ********************************************************************************************************************** the executable playbin is built The I set the LD_LIBRARY_PATH as follows $set LD_LIBRARY_PATH=($HOME/gstreamer_build/GST/include/gstreamer-0.10/:$HOME/gstreamer_build/GST/lib/:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH) when I try to run playbin It says it cannot find the shared library libgstreamer-0.10.21 ldd produces the following output $ldd ./playbin         libgstreamer-0.10.so.0 => not found         libgobject-2.0.so.0 => /usr/lib/libgobject-2.0.so.0 (0x00c65000)         libgthread-2.0.so.0 => /usr/lib/libgthread-2.0.so.0 (0x00688000)         librt.so.1 => /lib/tls/librt.so.1 (0x005bf000)         libgmodule-2.0.so.0 => /usr/lib/libgmodule-2.0.so.0 (0x00c60000)         libdl.so.2 => /lib/libdl.so.2 (0x008c9000)         libglib-2.0.so.0 => /usr/lib/libglib-2.0.so.0 (0x00af6000)         libxml2.so.2 => /usr/lib/libxml2.so.2 (0x07d22000)         libpthread.so.0 => /lib/tls/libpthread.so.0 (0x009ba000)         libc.so.6 => /lib/tls/libc.so.6 (0x00778000)         /lib/ld-linux.so.2 (0x0075b000)         libz.so.1 => /usr/lib/libz.so.1 (0x008cf000)         libm.so.6 => /lib/tls/libm.so.6 (0x008a4000) I don't understand 1.why it is not able to detect libgstreamer-0.10.21 2.why the default library paths are being set for other libarires Any clues on this? Regards Rajesh </blockquote></div>