MiKTeX doesn't launch on Linux: tries to load libboost_system.so

[gursuj]

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  Submitting a MiKTeX problem report

On Arch linux, the latest version of boost-libs doesn't seem to include libboost_system.so. I didn't understand it fully so I asked GPT which says Boost.System is header-only in recent Boost releases. This prevents miktex from launching. Was able to fix it for now by creating a dummy library for the version that miktex complains about using these steps:

cd /tmp
echo 'void dummy(){}' > dummy.c
gcc -shared -fPIC dummy.c -o libboost_system.so
sudo mv libboost_system.so /usr/lib/
sudo ldconfig

Steps to recreate issue:

1. On Arch (maybe occurs on other distros too), install miktex, which will also install boost-libs as a dependency
2. Run miktex or miktex-console
3. Miktex prints the following: miktex: error while loading shared libraries: libboost_system.so.1.88.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

Miktex installation report

ReportDate: 2025-11-14 09:32:17
CurrentVersion: 25.4
SetupDate: 2025-03-04 22:34:00
SetupVersion: 25.2
Configuration: Regular
GitInfo: ae1a027907 / 2025-04-18 10:00:22
OS: Linux 6.17.7-arch1-2 #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Wed, 12 Nov 2025 14:41:18 +0000 x86_64
SharedSetup: no
LinkTargetDirectory: /home/sujal/bin
PathOkay: yes
LastUpdateCheck: 2025-11-14 09:02:50
LastUpdate: 2025-05-08 09:39:41
LastUpdateDb: 2025-11-14 09:02:49
SystemAdmin: no
RootPrivileges: no
AdminMode: no
Root0: /home/sujal/.miktex/texmfs/config
Root1: /home/sujal/.miktex/texmfs/data
Root2: /home/sujal/.miktex/texmfs/install
UserInstall: /home/sujal/.miktex/texmfs/install
UserConfig: /home/sujal/.miktex/texmfs/config
UserData: /home/sujal/.miktex/texmfs/data

Didn't notice anything unusual in the log files.

[OliverGuy]

From the looks of it, the libboost package over on arch has been updated to 1.89.0-3 and thus provides libboost_system.so.1.89.0, not libboost_system.so.1.88.0.

[gursuj]

Normally, I'd symlink the newer version but it does seem that libboost_system is no longer provided when using the boost-libs package. Found an Arch forum discussion confirming this. Additionally, the first link has a "Package Contents" section and libboost-system isn't listed there.