On Sep 10, 2009, at 12:01 PM, Brian Rayburn wrote:
So I'm running Ubuntu and installing wireshark with apt-get.  I  
installed libpcap 1.0 before installing wireshark using autoconf but  
wireshark still installs with libpcap .9.
By "installs with" do you mean "runs with"?  I don't think any debs  
for Wireshark themselves *include* a deb for libpcap; however, as  
they're probably built with a libpcap shared library, they probably  
*depend* on the libpcap deb.
I hope that dependence can be, and is, expressed as "needs libpcap .9  
*or later*", so it doesn't *fail* if 1.0 is installed.  Given that  
libpcap 1.0 is binary-compatible with earlier versions, it should, if  
possible, be so expressed.
Unfortunately, the "obvious" version number of libpcap 0.x is 0 and  
the "obvious" version number of libpcap 1.x is 1, so, unless the  
packagers have, for example, either
	1) ignored that and called it libpcap.0
or
	2) added the appropriate symlinks so that programs expecting a  
libpcap.0 shared library will be linked with the libpcap.1 shared  
library
that binary compatibility won't actually work.
On top of that, I infer that "I installed libpcap 1.0 before  
installing wireshark using autoconf" means you built libpcap 1.0 from  
source and installed it; libpcap 1.0, by default, builds and installs  
only a static library, which means that only programs that you compile  
with that version of libpcap after you install that version will use  
it - Wireshark, which is probably dynamically linked with libpcap,  
won't.
However:
I need 1.0 in order to sniff USB messages.
...what you *really* want in order to sniff USB messages is the top-of- 
Git-tree version of libpcap, as that fixes a bunch of bugs in USB  
sniffing.
Another advantage of the top-of-Git-tree version of libpcap is that...
...it builds and installs a shared library by default on most  
platforms, including Linux.
It won't *replace* the libpcap on your system by default, as it'll  
install libpcap in /usr/local/lib rather than /usr/lib.