I have a need to create the static libs of a couple of older packages. Is there a recommended way to go about this without messing up my install? Do I simply grab the pkgbuild from the repo and “adjust” it to build the static libs? Or maybe this should be done via source and not involve pacman?
Edit: I guess this begs the question, if you are statically linking the libs, why care? Simply build it from source… a valid point.
replacing some system libraries with older and custom, statically linked ones
is likely not a very good idea
… if that is what you intend to do
Just creating them as statically linked likely won’t be a problem.
You’d only need to use and adjust the PKGBUILD if you intend to then install them
which, again, is likely not a good idea.
But, why not try? - if you have a backup.
I think it would be better to install and statically link the libs on a development box rather than require the old libs to be installed on all machines, since the libs are no longer actively supported.