Hardcoding library path does not work with DESTDIR installs. Affects any platform with 'hardcode_direct=yes' or 'hardcode_minus_L=yes'. According to libtool.m4 (as of libtool-1.5.26), these are: *-aix* *-hpux9 hppa-hpux* (not hppa64 or ia64) *-netbsd *-openbsd *-freebsd *-dragonfly *-newsos6 *-os2 *-amigaos *-sunos4 *-sysv4 It definitely is required for aix (to support DESTDIR), although it should help for others too... --- ../../libtool.orig 2009-07-16 18:06:59 +0200 +++ ../../libtool 2009-07-16 18:07:45 +0200 @@ -6298,13 +6298,13 @@ add_dir= add= # Finalize command for both is simple: just hardcode it. if test "$hardcode_direct" = yes && test "$hardcode_direct_absolute" = no; then add="$libdir/$linklib" - elif test "$hardcode_minus_L" = yes; then + elif false && test "$hardcode_minus_L" = yes; then add_dir="-L$libdir" add="-l$name" elif test "$hardcode_shlibpath_var" = yes; then case :$finalize_shlibpath: in *":$libdir:"*) ;; *) finalize_shlibpath="$finalize_shlibpath$libdir:" ;;