installing python library modules (general question)

[Martin v. Löwis]

juliagoolia301 at hotmail.com (Julia Goolia) writes:

> ImportError: libmad.so.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file
> or directory
> 
> I know the file /usr/local/lib/libmad.so.0 exists, but python can't
> seem to find it.  I tried adding this path to LD_LIBRARY_PATH, but
> that didn't help.

Can you please be precise on what "this path" is? Adding
"/usr/local/lib/libmad.so.0" would be wrong, whereas adding
"/usr/local/lib" should work.

> I guess that I just really dont' know enought about libraries and
> linux (redhat 9).  I don't really know where they are supposed to go
> after being compiled, and how python "loads" and uses them.

You might also edit /etc/ld.so.conf to add /usr/local/lib, and run
ldconfig afterwards; this would remove the need to set LD_LIBRARY_PATH

HTH,
Martin