How do I find the libraries this program needs for its environment variable?

Question

I am trying to set up the program NASAView, for viewing PDS files. The instructions say

Set the LD_LIBRARY_PATH Environment Variable

The LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable is used to locate the NASAView-dependent libraries such as XVT and Motif. The following command demonstrates how to set this variable, by appending to its current setting.

This example appends the locations of the NASAView-dependent libraries found in the nasaview directory as well as the Motif libraries:

[node:~] setenv LD_LIBRARY_PATH ${LD_LIBRARY_PATH}:/usr/local/openmotif-2.3.4/lib:$HOME/nasaview

[node:~] echo $LD_LIBRARY_PATH

Once the UIDPATH and LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variables have been set, the tool can be executed as demonstrated in the following example:

[node: /home/user/nasaview] ./nasaview

I haven't had any success trying to follow these instructions. It was built for CentOS, which I have installed on a virtual machine in order to use it, but I'm not used to it at all (I have an Ubuntu machine I'm a little more used to). In an earlier step I discovered the setenv command isn't recognized, and got advice to use export instead, which worked. Based on that, I believe what I need to use is

export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$LD_LIBRARY_PATH:path/to/motif/library

but I can't find that library. So I'm guessing what I need is to locate the motif library installed in my version of CentOS, and check what version it is. With that, then I complete the command with /lib:$HOME/nasaview?

Answer 1

Both xVT and openmotif are packaged for Centos. Just install the packages and don't worry about setting LD_LIBRARY_PATH.

When you read instructions like this, you always have to stop and consider whether what it's telling you to do is actually necessary on your system. Always check to see if a library or program is already packaged for your distro and use the packaged version if it exists rather than risk breaking your system by manually installing stuff you don't need to.