my $arflags = $fields[$idx_arflags];
my $multilib = $fields[$idx_multilib];
+# if $prefix/lib$multilib is not an existing directory, then
+# assume that it's not searched by linker automatically, in
+# which case adding $multilib suffix causes more grief than
+# we're ready to tolerate, so don't...
+$multilib="" if !-d "$prefix/lib$multilib";
+
$libdir="lib$multilib" if $libdir eq "";
$cflags = "$cflags$exp_cflags";