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Install packages & libraries on your local paths

Fedora is my favorite Linux distribution which is sponsored by Red Hat. Fedora 28 is out with a lot of features. Instead of upgrading my fedora using dnf-plugin-system-upgrade or the GNOME Software way, I'd always like to download the ISO and install it from a USB Flash Drive (cause that returns a pointer to the ISO and I could use it anywhere (ಠ⌣ಠ)).

I have a love/hate relationship is with the Red Hat's Automatic Partition which usually leaves with just 50GB for the Computer (/) and the rest for your $HOME. So I usually do Manual Partition and give the partitions the right space. But Automatic Partitions will save you some time by automatically giving other partitions the right amount of space.

This time, I opted for Automatic Partition and now I'm left with just 52.6GB. Actually its just 42.7GB after doing dnf upgrade. In my past, the first time when I've given Fedora a try, I used it for more days than I thought I would and I was struggling with <12GB of free space. That was the time, I thought, I wish I had known how to configure and install libraries on my local paths without letting everything existing packages down(pkg-config).

Now, I've finally found a way to install libraries on my own path. I like to use $HOME/.local/.

The Usual way

Usually, When you compile libraries from source, the usual way would be 

./configure
make
sudo make install

or 

./autogen.sh
./configure
make
sudo make install

Where do you think the libraries get installed?

That's /usr/local/include for headers, /usr/local/lib/ for your libraries that you can link with your programs. And also, pkg-config easily finds your libraries and packages.

What if you have less space on your Computer or like to install a package in a different location (like as I said $HOME/.local/)?

What You Need To Do

Well, that's easy though. The configure script also has a --prefix argument that allows you to install the package on given path. 

./configure --prefix $HOME/.local
make
make install

Note that you don't need the sudo command, as the $HOME doesn't require you to have root privileges.

After installing 

[monster@monster json-c]$ whereis json-c
json-c: /home/monster/.local/include/json-c

But will your packages be found and linked to other programs that use this packages?

Now I could finally install packages on my local paths. (YAY) Will I be able to use it? The answer is NO. (BOOO)

You must add the path to your $PATH variable. 

# ~.bashrc
export PATH="$PATH:$HOME/.local/lib:$HOME/.local/share:$HOME/.local/include:$HOME/.local/bin"

Sometimes you get complains about shared libraries. 

# ~/.bashrc
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH="$LD_LIBRARY_PATH:$HOME/.local/lib"
export LIBRARY_PATH="$LIBRARY_PATH:$HOME/.local/lib"

Also, you love pkg-config

# ~/.bashrc
export PKG_CONFIG_PATH="$PKG_CONFIG_PATH:$HOME/.local/lib/pkgconfig"

When you manually compile, your C/C++ compiler complains that it couldn't find the headers. 

# ~/.bashrc
export CPATH="$CPATH:$HOME/.local/include"
export C_INCLUDE_PATH="$C_INCLUDE_PATH:$HOME/.local/include"
export CPLUS_INCLUDE_PATH="$CPLUS_INCLUDE_PATH:$HOME/.local/include"

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