Default boost 1.53 on Ubuntu 13.10 doesn't work

sipa commented at 4:14 pm on November 7, 2013: member

As reported by a few people on IRC.

Installing libboost-{system,filesystem,chrono,program-options,thread,test}1.54{-dev,.0} manually seems to work.

gastonmorixe commented at 4:15 pm on November 7, 2013: none

:+1: (personally) confirmed.

laanwj commented at 5:21 pm on November 7, 2013: member

How does it not work? Does it generate an error message during runtime or compilation? If so which one?

gastonmorixe commented at 5:24 pm on November 7, 2013: none

@laanwj it prevents compilation

0checking for boostlib >= 1.20.0... yes
1checking whether the Boost::System library is available... yes
2configure: error: Could not find a version of the library!

laanwj commented at 5:36 pm on November 7, 2013: member

Can you pastebin the config.log somewhere?

gastonmorixe commented at 5:41 pm on November 7, 2013: none

@laanwj I think it’s too late, if config.log is not appended each time configure is exec, then mine only have the logs after installing proper packages sipa said and there fore it compiled properly (except for bdb too which was throwing an error).

laanwj commented at 8:27 am on November 8, 2013: member

I just upgraded my laptop to Ubuntu 13.10 (Salamander Sauce). This indeed installed boost 1.53:

 0libboost-chrono1.53-dev:amd64           install
 1libboost-date-time1.53-dev:amd64        install
 2libboost-dev:amd64              install
 3libboost-filesystem-dev:amd64           install
 4libboost-filesystem1.53-dev:amd64       install
 5libboost-iostreams-dev              install
 6libboost-iostreams1.53-dev:amd64        install
 7libboost-program-options-dev:amd64      install
 8libboost-program-options1.53-dev:amd64      install
 9libboost-regex1.53-dev:amd64            install
10libboost-serialization1.53-dev:amd64        install
11libboost-system-dev:amd64           install
12libboost-system1.53-dev:amd64           install
13libboost-test-dev:amd64             install
14libboost-test1.53-dev:amd64         install
15libboost-thread-dev:amd64           install
16libboost-thread1.53-dev:amd64           install
17libboost1.53-dev:amd64              install

No problems encountered configuring bitcoin:

 0checking for boostlib >= 1.20.0... yes
 1checking whether the Boost::System library is available... yes
 2checking for exit in -lboost_system... yes
 3checking whether the Boost::Filesystem library is available... yes
 4checking for exit in -lboost_filesystem... yes
 5checking whether the Boost::Program_Options library is available... yes
 6checking for exit in -lboost_program_options... yes
 7checking whether the Boost::Thread library is available... yes
 8checking for exit in -lboost_thread... yes
 9checking whether the Boost::Chrono library is available... yes
10checking whether the Boost::Unit_Test_Framework library is available... yes

Did you install all the necessary libboost-XXX-dev dependency packages?

gastonmorixe commented at 10:51 am on November 8, 2013: none

I did libboost-all-dev and no luck.

What I did not find was anything in /usr/lib about boost after installing all packages.

Sent from my iPhone

On Nov 8, 2013, at 6:27 AM, “Wladimir J. van der Laan” notifications@github.com wrote:

libboost-XXX-dev

laanwj commented at 11:00 am on November 8, 2013: member

Ok, I’m assuming it was a fluke or you were missing some package. There is no way to find this out anymore, so closing this issue.

laanwj closed this on Nov 8, 2013

schildbach commented at 11:58 am on November 8, 2013: contributor

I can confirm this is not a fluke. @laanwj I just personally mailed you my config.log after I ran ./configure with libboost-all-dev installed but none of the boost 1.54 packages. I was able to run the script with the 1.54 packages.

laanwj reopened this on Nov 8, 2013

laanwj commented at 12:09 pm on November 8, 2013: member

Hmm that’s not much more illuminating:

0configure:10381: $? = 0
1configure:10396: result: yes
2configure:10555: error: Could not find a version of the library!

likely we need to update the README to specify the packages separately instead of libboost-all-dev, as that’s what I did, I never installed libboost-all-dev.

schildbach commented at 12:17 pm on November 8, 2013: contributor

+1 specifying packages separately. libboost-all-dev installs a crapload of packages that are apparently not needed by bitcoin. Still I think the console output is misleading:

0checking whether the Boost::System library is available... yes
1configure: error: Could not find a version of the library!

What library?

laanwj commented at 12:40 pm on November 8, 2013: member

Yes, the output is misleading. I have no clue what library it’s complaining about, and there doesn’t seem to be a way to find out except for diving into tons of autogenerated neigh-unreadable bash script.

I see the problem with specifying the packages separately is that some packages such as libboost-chrono1.53-dev don’t have versionless aliases. I wonder if boost-all-dev catches them.

schildbach commented at 12:50 pm on November 8, 2013: contributor

I understand versionless aliases is exactly what we don’t want, since bitcoin works with boost 1.54 and not with boost 1.53. When I was still running Ubuntu 13.04, libboost-all-dev included all needed boost deps (and a lot more), so I assume under 13.10 it can work also if it included the necessary versions.

laanwj commented at 1:27 pm on November 8, 2013: member

Please read my post above, I did get it to work with boost 1.53.

If you install exactly the boost dev packages mentioned it should work.

gastonmorixe commented at 2:26 pm on November 8, 2013: none

I was compiling it under a new, clean, Ubuntu 13.10 virtual machine in Azure.

laanwj commented at 8:06 am on November 11, 2013: member

I’ve been able to reproduce this in a VM. The problem is that the configure script looks for boost libraries in /usr/lib64 (the value of BOOSTLIBDIR). However, they are not installed there but in /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/.

A temporary fix is to use ./configure --with-boost-libdir=/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu.

See #3232

theuni referenced this in commit efdfee423f on Dec 13, 2013

laanwj closed this on Dec 13, 2013

kechan commented at 10:11 am on January 1, 2014: none

Does this work for i386 (32 bit Ubuntu 13.10)? I am going to try this:

disable wallet (no need to worry about the berkeley db)
used configure –with-boost-libdir=/usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu (or variation on i386)
ran into libprotobuf not found, fixed with “sudo apt-get install libprotobuf-dev”
configure successful, and make seemed to be ok
see ./bitcoin/src/bitcoind compiled

Will try run it and see if it works and post later

Seemed to work. See debugging log processing blocks.

tschaume referenced this in commit 55caa929c2 on Jan 4, 2014

slacka commented at 7:39 pm on January 29, 2014: none

0./configure --with-boost-libdir=/usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu

Fixed this issue for me

jcalfee commented at 5:51 pm on April 23, 2014: none

Same error and fix under Ubuntu 14.04 .. Please remember to enhance the error message if possible…

laanwj commented at 5:28 am on June 6, 2014: member

Yes, On ARM (hardfloat) you need to provide:

0--with-boost-libdir=/usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf

I’m starting to see a pattern here :)

laanwj removed this from the milestone 0.9.0 on Jun 6, 2014

laanwj reopened this on Jun 6, 2014

theuni commented at 3:14 pm on June 6, 2014: member

I’ve got a few boost m4 changes queued up. I’ll add this to the ’to-fix-before-pushing-upstream’ list.

theuni commented at 5:03 am on June 11, 2014: member

Just had another look here while I was poking at #3945. The host string should take care of this.

To those who can reproduce, could you please verify that the master branch has this problem? It should’ve been solved by 13a2283a6d33

laanwj commented at 9:55 am on June 11, 2014: member

@theuni I’ve added some debug statements to ax_boost_base. The problem is that it thinks the lib directory will be armv7l-linux-gnueabihf, where it is arm-linux-gnueabihf. The default library path detection makes some assumptions.

Could we use g++ -print-search-dirs, and extract the libraries section, here instead?

theuni commented at 4:28 pm on June 11, 2014: member

Yea, that’s a good idea. Will play with it.

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NeoMod commented at 7:01 pm on November 21, 2015: none

Thank you @laanwj ! You just saved me from hours of useless research under Raspbian “Jessie”.

laanwj commented at 9:41 am on November 24, 2015: member

The error messages probably need to be more verbose in case the library search fails - where did it look, what exactly didn’t it find - the code is opaque, the only way I’ve been able to debug it (every time) was to litter the m4 with debug statements.

It is boost that complicates finding it by not supporting the standard ways of finding packages, such as pkg-config.

tanusreechatterjee commented at 8:38 am on June 5, 2016: none

I am trying to build NFD. While running the command ./waf configure, it gives the following error.

checking boost linkage: Could not link against boost libraries using supplied options

Tried several options to resolve the boost linkage error but could not make it. It is running in Ubuntu 14.04. Please help.

sipa commented at 8:43 am on June 5, 2016: member

What is NFD and waf?

paulbrittain commented at 2:59 am on March 5, 2017: none

Ran into this issue while configuring Ekiga 4.0.1 on Kali.

laanwj commented at 10:54 am on March 5, 2017: member

@paulbrittain So does this work?

A temporary fix is to use ./configure –with-boost-libdir=/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu

Should be fixed on master but I have no idea what version you’re trying to compile.

wullxz commented at 5:11 pm on March 6, 2017: none

@laanwj I also ran into that issue while configuring Ekiga 4.0.1 on KUbuntu 16.04. I tried running the command in the first post with the newest version from the Ubuntu repos (1.58) and I also tried to pass the libdir with no success:

./configure --with-lib-dir=/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu

checking for boostlib >= 1.34... yes checking whether the Boost::Signals library is available... yes configure: error: Could not find a version of the library!

Any other Idea?

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skysider commented at 8:31 am on September 18, 2017: none

apt install libboost-all-dev works for me

backpacker69 referenced this in commit ce4e11e051 on Nov 8, 2017

cameronbergh commented at 0:05 am on March 1, 2018: none

on ubuntu 17.10:

after : sudo apt install libboost-all-dev

checking whether the Boost::IOStreams library is available… yes configure: error: Could not find a version of the library!

laanwj commented at 10:32 am on March 1, 2018: member

@cameronbergh If that issue persists after starting with a clean tree, after following the instructions building Bitcoin core 0.16.0 or master, please open a new issue. A comment on an issue of 5 years ago is going to fall between the cracks. FWIW I’ve just successfully configured and built master on Ubuntu 17.10, but it might be something conflicting in your setup.

backpacker69 referenced this in commit ab77295298 on Mar 11, 2018

viertelb commented at 7:04 am on September 4, 2019: none

I have the same problem on Raspian Buster. When I ./configure libbitcoin-system it exits with `checking whether the Boost::Chrono library is available… yes

configure: error: Could not find a version of the library!`

laanwj commented at 8:27 am on September 4, 2019: member

@bvrules Exactly the same comment for you: please create a new issue with detailed information about your system and installed packages, and which version of bitcoin you are trying to compile. Replying to a 6-year old closed issue does not help.

viertelb commented at 8:34 am on September 4, 2019: none

@laanwj thanks, i know. I still wanted to tell. :) I made a question here: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/57784467/is-boost-missing-files

Bushstar referenced this in commit 4c00d98ea6 on Apr 8, 2020

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MarcoFalke locked this on Dec 16, 2021

Default boost 1.53 on Ubuntu 13.10 doesn’t work #3219

Will try run it and see if it works and post later