[pkg-boost-devel] Boost on Debian

[Steve M. Robbins]

Howdy,

I started writing the enclosed message to david.abrahams at rcn.com in
response to a message he posted on the boost list.  Have either of you
already responded, by chance?  If not, please read the following and
make/suggest any changes you deem necessary.  You are closer to the
current build process than I am.

Thanks,
-Steve


Hello Dave,

I'm responding to your message on boost mailing list
http://lists.boost.org/Archives/boost/2006/02/100262.php

Apologies for the tardy response.  I read the list very infrequently
via web archives and I have only just noticed the message.

So you ask:

    I am going to be trying to write some new "getting started"
    documentation for Boost for the upcoming release. I would really
    like to include some information about what people can expect when
    they get Boost packages from their Debian, RedHat, whatever
    distribution. All of our documentation so far is written from the
    perspective that users have a complete Boost CVS tree, but I guess
    that's not true for everyone? Can you fill us in?

The short answer is: someone wishing to develop code using Boost under
Debian need install the package libboost-dev (and, possibly, other
-dev packages like libboost-filesystem-dev).  The headers as well
as static and shared library files are all installed into standard
locations.  Compilation and linking is done with no special options
other than specifying the library; e.g. "-lboost_filesystem".

Documentation is provided in package "libboost-doc".

Our goal is to make the Debian Boost library packages as much like
standard libraries as possible.  For Debian, this means that headers
and link-time library files are contained in a "-dev" package.  In
addition, for each library that builds a shared object, we have a
separate, versioned package, e.g. "libboost-filesystem1.33.1".
Normally, however, one isn't concerned with the library package
because the "-dev" package depends on the shared library package and
installing the former automatically brings in the latter.

The "-dev" package contains the "release" build with both single- and
multi-threaded versions, in both static and shared flavours for a
total of 4 libraries.  So the developer may choose to link using
"-llibboost_filesystem-gcc-1_33_1" or "
"-llibboost_filesystem-gcc-mt-1_33_1", shared or static.

We also provide a shorthand symbolic link for the multithreaded
version; you can use just "-llibboost_filesystem" (shared or static).

Finally, there is a "libboost-dbg" package that contains the debug
build of all the shared libraries, both single- and multi-threaded.

Regards,
-Steve