Hello,

I am cross compiling ntfs-3g (2009.1.1, gcc 4.1.1) and would like the "make install" step to put everything in some directory of my choice. So I use the --prefix option:


the problem is that --prefix is not honored for architecture dependent files in my host install directories (which would screw up my system and is annoying because it's difficult to see what it has done). It seems to have put at the correct place all the architecture independent ones (man pages, links, ...).

I have also tried to add explicitly the --exec-prefix option (normally it should default to the $PREFIX value), but same result.

PS: transparent UTF-8 conversion support is a really cool feature, thanks !

sorry, syntax error :) (can't edit posts ?)

I meant:

the problem is that --prefix is not honored for architecture dependent files and tries to install them in my host install directories

instead of:

It's honored except the binaries. From the NTFS-3G build system



So --exec-prefix should work.

Moreover mount.ntfs-3g MUST BE ALWAYS in /sbin due to the design of the Linux mounting system. If you don't want to add /sbin/mount.ntfs-3g and want 'mount -t ntfs-3g' ... to be broken then use './configure --disable-mount-helper'.

then in this line that is output by ./configure --help:


[PREFIX] should be removed because it wrongly suggests that PREFIX will be the default


It's actually true, except for one thing. With --exec-prefix it copies the binaries to the right place, but it tries to do this:

ln -s -f "/mnt/dir/bin/ntfs-3g" "/sbin/mount.ntfs-3g"
(that's why I was mistaken)

apparently that's the only thing that is wrong

I tried setting all the options (--bindir, --sbindir, --libexecdir, ...) but it still wants to make the link to my host instead of to the target.


I want mount.ntfs-3g to bin in /sbin but only on the TARGET, not on the HOST where it will just break my system. When you cross compile, you need an intermediate step (first in some temp dir, then at the correct place on the target) because you DON'T want binaries from a different arch being installed or even worse replace your current binaries.

What you want to achieve is done by using DESTDIR: http://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/html_ ... STDIR.html