How to determine modular paths?

[Stefan Dirsch]

On Thu, Nov 16, 2006 at 09:20:28AM -0800, Andy Ritger wrote:
> 
> (This topic came up previously, but the feedback I have received is that
> the thread didn't completely reach consensus)
> 
> What is the proper way for a 3rd party X driver installation tool to
> know the correct path for installation?
> 
> In this thread:
> 
>     http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/xorg/2005-December/011369.html
> 
> it was suggested to use `pkg-config --variable=moduledir xorg-server`,
> which seems reasonable to me.  The NVIDIA installation utility runs
> these commands:
> 
>     pkg-config --variable=moduledir xorg-server
>     pkg-config --variable=libdir xorg-server
> 
> to find the paths for X driver installation and X library installation 
> (like libXvMC).
> 
> However, in many modular installations, the pkg-config command does
> not work because the .pc file is not installed along with the X server,
> but rather with the devel package which many users do not have installed.
> 
> Are the above pkg-config commands the correct way for 3rd party
> installation tools to determine the paths where the related files should
> be installed?
> 
> If so, then I'd like to argue that it should not require installing a
> devel package in order to get the .pc file that defines these variables.
> Rather, it would be very helpful if distributions adjusted their packaging
> so that .pc files with these variables came with the xorg-server package,
> without the need to specifically install a devel package.

SUSE will include xorg-server.pc on openSUSE 10.2 by default without
the need to install a devel package. Unfortunately we won't install
pkg-config by default, which makes this rather useless again. :-(

> FWIW, the NVIDIA installation utility attempts to guess at the modular
> path if the pkg-config command does not work, but it's not completely
> reliable.  Source to the utility is here:
> 
>     ftp://download.nvidia.com/XFree86/nvidia-installer/nvidia-installer-1.0.tar.gz

nvidia-installer-1.0.7.tar.gz is the latest one, correct?

Best regards,
Stefan

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