I would like to use the boost serialization library to do checkpointing for a simulation which runs for one or more weeks. However, I have not been able to get past the "hello world" stage. I have tried to do this on both a linux machine running gcc 3.4.5 and Mac OS X using gcc 3.3. In both cases, my attempts to compile the demo.cpp program fail with long lists of undefined symbols. I will give the specifics for the Mac because this is where it will ultimately be used and because the instalation seems more standard there. The demo.cpp I am trying to compile is the one available on http://www.boost.org/libs/serialization/doc/tutorial.html The boost include files are installed in /usr/local/boost/gcc/ The libraries are installed in /usr/local/lib/ For example, here I find libboost_serialization.a and libboost_serialization.dylib. I am attempting to compile as follows: gcc \ -L/usr/local/lib/ \ -I/usr/local/include/ \ -lboost_serialization \ demo.cpp I have tried various variations on this including adding all the .a files to the list of libraries to link, and adding stdc++. I get error messages of which the following are typical ld: Undefined symbols: __ZNKSs5c_strEv __ZNKSt9basic_iosIcSt11char_traitsIcEE4failEv __ZNSaIcEC1Ev __ZNSaIcED1Ev followed by more of the same. I have no doubt there is something very simple I am failing to do, very likely something so simple no one knowledgeable would think to put it in the documentation. So I will probably feel very dumb when someone educates me about this, but I will also feel very relieved. Thanks in advance for your help.