Problem with libpng + Mozilla applications on FreeBSD 8.3

[Manish Jain]

Hello Polytropon,

Thanks for replying.

 > Maybe an update of FF and TB would be sufficient, so it can link
 > to the present (or at least expected) libraries accordingly.

Maybe I did not make it clear enough in the original message. The only 
thing I installed from the installation DVD was the OS and the GNOME2 
metaport. Everything else including FF and TB was installed from ports, 
the tarball of which I downloaded just a couple of days back. I hope you 
are not suggesting that I build the GNOME2 metaport too from the ports 
directory : with my internet connection, that really would take me into 
the next century.

> You should not manually copy things. At some point, something will
> crash, and the ports infrastructure cannot take care of it. It's
> easier to use a port management tool (like portmaster) to deal
> with installing and updating of ports.

For the present issue, it seems logical that I would need 2 versions of 
libpng : one for GNOME and one for the ports being installed. Having the 
two versions reside independently in /usr/lib and /usr/local/lib seems 
to be the only way out. I still must admit that it defeats the purpose 
of having port management tools.

I suspect that there might be folks at Mozilla who might see the light 
at the end of the tunnel (and the images on their buttons). I'll try 
roping them in with a separate message. If anything useful comes up, 
I'll post it to freebsd-questions as a message of possible interest to 
any other users who might be facing the same problem.


Regards,

Manish Jain
bourne.identity at hotmail.com