Which library are LO headers belonging to

If it's avaliable for Ubuntu 11.10 AND it's an header-only library, then you can just download and install manually the package with

cd /tmp
wget http://launchpadlibrarian.net/72511308/libglm-dev_0.9.2.0-2_all.deb
dpkg -i libglm-dev_0.9.2.0-2_all.deb

You don't say what distribution of Linux this is, but often times there is a directory where you can add dynamically linkable libraries. On Redhat distros such as Fedora this directory is here, /etc/ld.so.conf.d/.

LD

You can add a file to this directory with the path to your newly installed library like so:

$ cat /etc/ld.so.conf.d/myboost.conf
/usr/local/lib/boost1.55

Then run this command:

$ ldconfig -v

This will process all the libraries and rebuild a "cache", /etc/ld.so.cache. This cache is what's used to locate libraries when they're specified like so: -lboost_thread-mgw46-mt-sd-1_54.

Example output

$ ldconfig -v
/usr/lib64/atlas:
        libclapack.so.3 -> libclapack.so.3.0
        libptcblas.so.3 -> libptcblas.so.3.0
        libf77blas.so.3 -> libf77blas.so.3.0
        libcblas.so.3 -> libcblas.so.3.0
        liblapack.so.3 -> liblapack.so.3.0
        libptf77blas.so.3 -> libptf77blas.so.3.0
        libatlas.so.3 -> libatlas.so.3.0
/usr/lib64/wxSmithContribItems:
        libwxflatnotebook.so.0 -> libwxflatnotebook.so.0.0.1
...

When adding paths to the setup, I like to confirm by going through this output to make sure things are getting picked up the way I expect them to.

LD's cache

You can always print the contents of the .cache file as well using this command:

$ ldconfig -p | head -10
2957 libs found in cache `/etc/ld.so.cache'
    lib3ds-1.so.3 (libc6,x86-64) => /usr/lib64/lib3ds-1.so.3
    libzvbi.so.0 (libc6,x86-64) => /usr/lib64/libzvbi.so.0
    libzvbi-chains.so.0 (libc6,x86-64) => /usr/lib64/libzvbi-chains.so.0
    libzrtpcpp-1.4.so.0 (libc6,x86-64) => /usr/lib64/libzrtpcpp-1.4.so.0
    libzmq.so.1 (libc6,x86-64) => /usr/lib64/libzmq.so.1
    libzmq.so (libc6,x86-64) => /usr/lib64/libzmq.so
    libzipios.so.0 (libc6,x86-64) => /usr/lib64/libzipios.so.0
    libzipios.so (libc6,x86-64) => /usr/lib64/libzipios.so
    libzip.so.1 (libc6,x86-64) => /usr/lib64/libzip.so.1

Why's my ldd output still using 1.53?

This is because your binary is using dynamic libraries. So when the binary was compiled, it was against the 1.55 versions of the libraries. However when you interrogate the binary using ldd, it's within the environment that's using the contents of the .cache file. So the library within the cache that is associated with the symbols used by this binary match those for 1.53, hence you're seeing those libraries.

Your environment knows nothing of the 1.55 libraries, only your build environment, i.e. your Makefile, is aware of this.

Dynamic libraries

Think of the functions within these as symbols. The symbols are a name, and so these names often don't change from one version of a library to another. So if you were to look at a library such as boost, you can use the tool readelf to get a list of the symbols within one of these .so files.

Example

$ readelf -Ws /usr/lib64/libboost_date_time-mt.so | head -10

Symbol table '.dynsym' contains 261 entries:
   Num:    Value          Size Type    Bind   Vis      Ndx Name
     0: 0000000000000000     0 NOTYPE  LOCAL  DEFAULT  UND 
     1: 000000335aa096a8     0 SECTION LOCAL  DEFAULT    9 
     2: 0000000000000000     0 FUNC    GLOBAL DEFAULT  UND _ZNSt8bad_castD2Ev@GLIBCXX_3.4 (2)
     3: 0000000000000000     0 FUNC    GLOBAL DEFAULT  UND _ZNSt6locale5_ImplD1Ev@GLIBCXX_3.4 (2)
     4: 0000000000000000     0 OBJECT  GLOBAL DEFAULT  UND _ZTINSt6locale5facetE@GLIBCXX_3.4 (2)
     5: 0000000000000000     0 FUNC    GLOBAL DEFAULT  UND wcslen@GLIBC_2.2.5 (3)
     6: 0000000000000000     0 OBJECT  GLOBAL DEFAULT  UND _ZTISt11logic_error@GLIBCXX_3.4 (2)

In the above output you can see some of the FUNC definitions, these are the names that are used to "link" a function in an executable with a function from some .so library.

I'm over simplifying this, and probably explaining things slightly off, but I'm only trying to give you a general idea of how the mechanics of how the machinery under the hood works.

References

• How do I list the symbols in a .so file