Installing a later hamlib on Linux

I'm currently using Ubuntu 24.04.3 LTS in the shack. Choosing an older stable version of the bleeding edge where I find changes to the sound system give me trouble with the apps I use including FreeDV, WSJT-X, and Fldig.

Unfortunately, the version of libhamlib either in the OS or bundled in the apps doesn't have some of the radios I use, including the QMX, so I wanted to upgrade it. Here are the steps I took, although there may be an easier way.

First, to find the path to the hamlib library that wsjtx is using:

ldd /usr/bin/wsjtx|grep hamlib

Next I had a look at that file to see where it symbolically linked with:

ls -l /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libhamlib.so.4

I downloaded the latest hamlib source tar archive from: https://github.com/Hamlib/Hamlib/releases

Unpacked and built the source (I already developer tools installed but I'll leave that out of this note):

tar xzvf hamlib-4.6.5.tar.gz
cd hamlib-4.6.5/
./configure
make
sudo make install

This put a new hamlib in:

/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libhamlib.so.4

I moved aside the old sym link:

sudo mv /usr/local/lib/libhamlib.so.4 /usr/local/lib/libhamlib.so.4.orig

And made a sym link to the newly built library:

sudo ln $HOME/Documents/hamlib-4.6.5/src/.libs/libhamlib.so.4 /usr/local/lib/libhamlib.so.4

I may not have this entirely accurate but it will serve as a note to myself. Anyhow, the programs now have a later version of hamlib.