I created a simple software project and want to build and distribute it using the GNU Build system. However, I can't for the life of me figure out how to include preexisting installed libraries in the project. The GNU Build System's hello world examples are great but they are too simple, not showing you how to include other object files or installed libraries.

I know there is the LDADD in Makefile.am but how do you specify the installed library name and where to look for it. I thought one of those auto tools (aclocal, autoconf, automake, etc) would automatically figure out the location of library files so that you could just specify the library name but it doesn't appear to work that way.

Please help.

Jim Y.