Although I successfully built koffice with wv2-0.2.3 installed, by reversing the respective patches applied in SVN, you said that version is broken and inadequate. Therefore I replaced 0.2.3 with 0.4.2 and tried building koffice. FTBFS. libtool: link: `/usr/lib/libwv2.la' is not a valid libtool archive My apologies but I can't find in the list digest our past conversations regarding that specific error. This seems to be a common error message with compiling. The file is installed and not missing. That excludes that common explanation for the error message, but the build log does not say the file is missing. :) The Debian package list does not include the la file (http://packages.debian.org/squeeze/i386/libwv2-4/filelist). Curiouser and curiouser. The la files are nothing but text files. The la files between the two versions are different, but I don't know what to fix. Conspicuous is the 'shouldnotlink' directives. In 0.2.3 that directive is no and in 0.4.2 the directive is yes. I'm just guessing here. I changed the 0.4.2 directive to no and tried to build. Another noticeable difference is the 0.4.2 la file does not contain a header statement about being a libtool library file. that missing header statement would correlate with the build error message that the file is not valid. One other noticeable difference. The 0.4.2 build script uses cmake and not make. Might that be a clue? Should I delete the 0.4.2 la file before trying to build koffice? Will that affect any other build that tries to compile against wv2-0.4.2? In 0.2.3 the files in /usr/lib: -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1147 2007-02-15 23:40 /usr/lib/libwv2.la* lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 15 2008-03-14 07:29 /usr/lib/libwv2.so -> libwv2.so.1.0.8* lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 15 2008-03-14 07:29 /usr/lib/libwv2.so.1 -> libwv2.so.1.0.8* -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 611808 2007-02-15 23:40 /usr/lib/libwv2.so.1.0.8* In 0.4.2: -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 804 2010-09-11 12:50 /usr/lib/libwv2.la* lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 11 2010-09-17 00:30 /usr/lib/libwv2.so -> libwv2.so.4* lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 15 2010-09-17 00:30 /usr/lib/libwv2.so.4 -> libwv2.so.4.0.1* -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 828328 2010-09-11 12:51 /usr/lib/libwv2.so.4.0.1* The 0.2.3 libwv2.la: ========================================================= # libwv2.la - a libtool library file # Generated by ltmain.sh - GNU libtool 1.5.18 (1.1220.2.245 2005/05/16 08:55:27) # # Please DO NOT delete this file! # It is necessary for linking the library. # The name that we can dlopen(3). dlname='libwv2.so.1' # Names of this library. library_names='libwv2.so.1.0.8 libwv2.so.1 libwv2.so' # The name of the static archive. old_library='' # Libraries that this one depends upon. dependency_libs=' /usr/lib/libgsf-1.la /usr/lib/libgobject-2.0.la /usr/lib/libxml2.la -lbz2 /usr/lib/libgobject-2.0.la /usr/lib/libglib-2.0.la /usr/lib/libxml2.la -ldl -lz /usr/lib/libglib-2.0.la /usr/lib/libstdc++.la -L/usr/i486-slackware-linux/bin -L/usr/i486-slackware-linux/lib -L/usr/lib/gcc/i486-slackware-linux/../../../i486-slackware-linux/lib -L/usr/lib/gcc/i486-slackware-linux/../..' # Version information for libwv2. current=1 age=0 revision=8 # Is this an already installed library? installed=yes # Should we warn about portability when linking against -modules? shouldnotlink=no # Files to dlopen/dlpreopen dlopen='' dlpreopen='' # Directory that this library needs to be installed in: libdir='/usr/lib' ========================================================= The 0.4.2 libwv2.la: ========================================================= # Please DO NOT delete this file! # It is necessary for linking the library with libtool. # The name that we can dlopen(3). dlname='libwv2.so' # Names of this library. library_names='libwv2.so.4.0.1 libwv2.so.4 libwv2.so' # The name of the static archive. old_library='' # Libraries that this one depends upon. dependency_libs=' -lz -lgsf-1 -lc -lglib-2.0' # Names of additional weak libraries provided by this library weak_library_names='' # Version information for /dev/shm/wv2-0.4.2/build/libwv2.la. current=4 age=0 revision=1 # Is this an already installed library? installed=yes # Should we warn about portability when linking against -modules? shouldnotlink=yes # Files to dlopen/dlpreopen dlopen='' dlpreopen='' # Directory that this library needs to be installed in: libdir='/usr/lib' =========================================================