Ubuntu 24.04 : checking for libmpdec library in default path... Could not find libmpdec, error: Please reinstall libmpdec

[iamniels]

I'm writing this here as a reference for others who run into this issue, because it took me a while before I figured it out.

Lib mpdecimal has been removed from the Ubuntu 24.04 package repository: https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/mpdecimal

So you need to install it from source in Ubuntu 24.04. Here are the required steps:

• Download mpdecimal here: https://www.bytereef.org/mpdecimal/download.html
• Unpack and cd into the folder with the sources
• run ./configure --prefix=/usr/local
• run make
• run sudo make install

Now you can execute pecl install decimal again.

[oerdnj]

There's nothing I can do for Ubuntu now, but libmpdec-dev is now available from deb.sury.org and I've also reuploaded the package to Debian unstable (but it is now in the NEW queue, so I am not sure if it will be in Debian trixie).

[foxharp]

For anyone else that finds this issue, while looking for mpdecimal: it is indeed in trixie (Debian 13). Install libmpdec-dev, which should pull in libmpdec4. (I got confused looking for libmpdec at first, but that's not how the naming works.) And I haven't verified personally, but a quick search suggests it's in Ubuntu 25.