I used libtool via automake for building a python module. Quite unhelpfully, libtool happens to build only the static library. It does that even though I passed the -module option, which should make it clear that a static library does not help at all. There is also no mention why it skips the shared library.

After some research, my memory came back: libtool requires to pass the -rpath option to actually build shared libraries. I did not want to pass that options, since it is considered harmful where multiple variants of a library are available. It is even less useful in my specific case, as the module is only used inside the source tree for unit testing.

Solution: I changed the Makefile.am to use

_helper_la_LDFLAGS = -module -rpath /freaking/libtool/requires/at/least/a/dummy/path

Interestingly, the same scheme (apart from the wording) is used in libtool’s own source.

But for some reason, the installation reliably freezes at some (variable) point. The last time (I think on the 4th run), the final state shows a progress bar titled “Select and install software” at 1% (see screenshot).

Frozen lenny installation on virtualbox

However, I can still change into another virtual console inside the virtual machine and everything seems to work fine in there. I can create files on the target root partition, read files from the installer CD. Running ps in the machine, the only indicator that something is wrong is that all installer processes are in “stopped” state. On a fully installed machine, I would use tools like strace and gdb to find out what’s going on here, but they are not available inside the installer.

So I’ll go the easy way and create a Xen DomU to test my packages. If somebody has an explanation for this behaviour, I’m all ears…

Software versions used

virtualbox-ose                            3.0.10-dfsg-1
virtualbox-ose-guest-source               3.0.10-dfsg-1
debian-503-i386-netinst.iso