Hello Dave, I'm responding to your message on boost mailing list http://lists.boost.org/Archives/boost/2006/02/100262.php Domenico Andreoli also contributed to this response. Apologies for the tardy response. I read the list very infrequently via web archives and I have only just noticed the message. So you ask: I am going to be trying to write some new "getting started" documentation for Boost for the upcoming release. I would really like to include some information about what people can expect when they get Boost packages from their Debian, RedHat, whatever distribution. All of our documentation so far is written from the perspective that users have a complete Boost CVS tree, but I guess that's not true for everyone? Can you fill us in? The short answer is: someone wishing to develop code using Boost under Debian need install the package libboost-dev (and, possibly, other -dev packages like libboost-filesystem-dev). The headers as well as static and shared library files are all installed into standard linux locations. Compilation and linking is done with no special options other than specifying the library; e.g. "-lboost_filesystem". Our goal is to make the Debian Boost library packages as much like standard libraries as possible. For Debian, this means that headers and link-time library files are contained in a "-dev" package. In addition, for each library that builds a shared object, we have a separate, versioned package, e.g. "libboost-filesystem1.33.1". Normally, however, one isn't concerned with the library package because the "-dev" package depends on the shared library package and installing the former automatically brings in the latter. The list of all -dev packages can be obtained by looking at what libboost-dev suggests with standard Debian tools like "aptitude" or "apt-cache". The "-dev" package contains the "release" build with both single- and multi-threaded versions, in both static and shared flavours for a total of 4 libraries. So the developer may choose to link using "-llibboost_filesystem-gcc-1_33_1" or " "-llibboost_filesystem-gcc-mt-1_33_1", shared or static. We also provide a shorthand symbolic link for the multithreaded version; you can use just "-llibboost_filesystem" (shared or static). In addition to the "-dev" packages, we have libboost-doc (documentation) bcp boost-jam boost-build (v2) Finally, there is a "libboost-dbg" package that contains the debug build of all the shared libraries, both single- and multi-threaded. Hope this is helpful, -Steve _______________________________________________ pkg-boost-devel mailing list pkg-boost-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/pkg-boost-devel