Why the configure reports no GL library found when build rss-glx project?

Question

I download the rss-glx 0.9 project's source codes to build. But the configure script complained GL library was not found!

...
checking GL/gl.h usability... yes
checking GL/gl.h presence... yes
checking for GL/gl.h... yes
checking GL/glx.h usability... yes
checking GL/glx.h presence... yes
checking for GL/glx.h... yes
checking for glNewList in -lGL... no
checking for glNewList in -lMesaGL... no
configure: error: GL library was not found.

But there are GL libraries in /usr/lib.

$ ls /usr/lib/GL*
/usr/lib/libGLcore.so.1       /usr/lib/libGL.so.180.29
/usr/lib/libGLcore.so.180.29  /usr/lib/libGLU.a
/usr/lib/libGLEW.so.1.5       /usr/lib/libGLU.so
/usr/lib/libGLEW.so.1.5.0     /usr/lib/libGLU.so.1
/usr/lib/libGL.la             /usr/lib/libGLU.so.1.3.070004
/usr/lib/libGL.so.1

Anybody can tell me why? Thanks.

---

Thank you, drhirsch. I have found out the reason. In my /usr/lib, libGL.so is a symbolic link to /usr/lib/nvidia/libGL.so.1.2.xlibmesa. And in /usr/lib/nvidia, there is not a libGL.so.1.2.xlibmesa but a libGL.so.xlibmesa, which is also a symbolic link to a no-existed libGL.so.1. Now I have fixed the problem and it's OK.

I don't know why there are some null symbolic links. I guess it occured when I reinstall the nvidia graphic card driver for my Debian's kernel updated from 2.6.26-1 to 2.6.26-2.

Answer 1

Looks like the linker wasn't able to link a test program against your GL library. (This is was configure does). Possibly a version mismatch.

What exactly has happened is written in the file 'config.log', close to the end, but before the whole envirnoment variables content. You can repeat the last unsuccessful command at the comand line and look a the error the linker throws out.

Answer 2

I had a similar problem once. A quick fix might be to create a symlink called libGL.so and have it point to one of the "other" libGLs