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Error while loading shared libraries message

This error message means that you have downloaded a package which is dynamically linked to Qt, and either your system lacks the correct Qt version, or you haven't set the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable correctly.

If you download an Opera package with Qt statically linked instead, you won't have to worry about this. We would recommend most users to download the static package, although the dynamic version is about half the size. You can get the static version using your favorite package manager (in Debian or Ubuntu you would get opera-static), or you can download it from the Opera FTP site. When you have found the version and language you want, choose static instead of shared.

Running a dynamically linked Opera

If you need or want to run a dynamically linked version, the following advice may be of help.

You should be able to see which version of Qt you need by looking at the error message. For instance, trying to start Opera 9 on a system without Qt will print a message similar to this:

/usr/lib/opera/9.21-20070510.6/opera: error while loading shared libraries: libqt-mt-so.3: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

This means that you need Qt3. How you install Qt3 depends on your particular Linux distribution. On Debian or Ubuntu, you simply do apt-get install libqt3-mt.

If you are sure that Qt is installed on your system, and you still get the error message, you must set the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable. To set this path, use export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=[path]. The path depends on where libqt.so.3 resides on your system. Here is an example if you are using Opera 5.0, which requires Qt 2.2.4:

export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/local/qt-2.2.4/lib

This command can be entered in a terminal window.

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