Linux: How to statically link against system libs?

[Nick Sabalausky]

"Adam D. Ruppe" <destructionator at gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:iqbjs4$2vrm$1 at digitalmars.com...
> Nick Sabalausky wrote:
>> I've actually come close to making my own IM client out of
>> frustration, but libpidgin was a pain
>
> Hah, I started one as well, with only aim support. It actually kinda
> works (and written in D), but I keep changing my D gui stuff around
> (this program is one of the D Windowing System test apps, which
> changes then stagnates then changes then is tabled then changes...)
> that it's not really usable.
>
> I basically settled for gaim 1.5 with a few modifications.
> Annoyingly, bugs have crept in as the stupid gtk or glib updates
> and gaim doesn't, but I know it's limits so if it crashes when
> I close a tab, I just don't close tabs like that.
>
>
> Gaim is one of those programs that went to pure crap with a new
> version though. Pidgin, gaim 2.0, is just utterly unusable to me.
>

I found it basically usable (back when there were actually other people on 
it ;) ), but it's inability to use the default away message, or even just 
log in, without it sitting there first doing nothing but waiting for a 
custom message that I'd never type in annoyed the hell out of me. There were 
a few other annoyances, too, like how the table in the "saved statuses" 
screen sets the vertical-align of each cell to middle instead of top. (I 
hate it when web pages do it, and now a desktop app is doing it, too?)

It might be better for me though, because I run it on windows, so I rarely 
have GTK getting updated behind Pidgin's back.

I could come up with a huge list of programs that just get worse with newer 
releases...iTunes, FireFox, pretty much anything from Adobe, Windows 
(post-XP anyway), Nero, Roxio, KDE3->KDE4, Azureus->Vuze, McAffee (It's hard 
to imagine there was ever a time it wasn't worse than the disease), Visual 
Studio, id Software FPSes after Doom 2 (although they didn't actually reach 
"bad" until Q3A), all just off the top of my head.

>>  Lol, or maybe I'll go back to blackbox ;)
>
> Blackbox rocks. It's what I used as my starting point. Actually,
> my custom WM is a fairly short diff from blackbox. It's biggest
> shortcoming, but that's a gift as well as a curse - it leaves
> the door open to put in a customized one!
>

Yea, I used Blackbox a little bit when I first tried Linux ten years ago. It 
held it's own pretty well against the alternatives.

>> Unfortunately, I don't have the time or patience to do any heavy
>> customizing/configuring. If I did, I might not have been driven
>> away from Linux when I first tried it ten years ago.
>
> What happened with me is I kinda locked myself into it. Switching
> away would be an even bigger hassle due to moving files and such,
> so I stuck with it, slowly excising the worst of the suck.
>
> The thing that still pisses me off beyond belief is something I
> can't fix myself - interoperability, the topic of this thread.
>
> (see I'm still on topic!)

Heh :) And then I go mercilessly killing the topic ;)