Just a thought (sorry for resurrecrting this thread), most problems with symlinks (except the ones that _need_ rootfs as in booting routine) is that at some point ../.. leads nowhere (my understanding of actual problem is limited, very), Tanner had similar problems with libs/includes... Has anyone tried just optifying to the same level of depth? so ../.. would result in exactly 2 level shallower call? If when building something symlinked to /opt/dir1/ calls ../ it ends up in /opt, proposed solution (most likely ********) link files to /opt/. Same depth wouldn't help those situations? It guarantees a mess in /opt/ (you can put /lib files and /bin etc), but should keep those nasty one-level down calls in check? Any thoughts???