ld.exe Skipping incompatible libz.a when searching for -lz.

I am EXTREMELY new to Wii development. My knowledge of C++ is also very limited, so if you can answer this, PLEASE keep it simple. Basically, I downloaded libwiigui and after much research, I found out I was missing header files and .a library files, so I installed the missing headers and libraries in C:\devkitPro\libogc. (I keep seeing these things that tell me it's suppose to go in C:\devkitPro\Portlibs, but there is no portlibs directory, whatever that is.) Everything works perfectly until it tries to compile the libz library, where is throws the following error:

> "make"
linking ... libwiigui-demo.elf
c:/devkitpro/devkitppc/bin/../lib/gcc/powerpc-eabi/4.5.1/../../../../powerpc-eabi/bin/ld.exe: skipping incompatible c:/devkitPro/libogc/lib/wii\libz.a when searching for -lz
c:/devkitpro/devkitppc/bin/../lib/gcc/powerpc-eabi/4.5.1/../../../../powerpc-eabi/bin/ld.exe: cannot find -lz
collect2: ld returned 1 exit status
make[1]: *** [/c/users/nkosi/documents/wiiprojects/guilibrary/libwiigui-demo.elf] Error 1
"make": *** [build] Error 2

> Process Exit Code: 2
> Time Taken: 00:04

I have no idea why it is doing this, but I've tried finding a solution, and everything I found was either totally unrelated or I didn't understand it. Can someone please tell me what I'm doing wrong?

Does the template example compile? It should be located in devkit/examples/wii/template (something like that). If this complies, the look at the makefile in that directory and change the line:

LIBS := -logc -lanotherlibrary -lnextfile

If there is no -lz in this list then add it at the end, then compile the template again. If it doesn't compile then try reinstalling devkitPRO.

You're right, it's saying it can't find zlib.

zlib should be put in C:\devkitPro\portlibs\ppc\

So:

C:\devkitPro\portlibs\ppc\lib\libz.a
C:\devkitPro\portlibs\ppc\include\zconf.h
C:\devkitPro\portlibs\ppc\include\zlib.h

Thanks Tantric, your solution solved my problem. I made a new folder in C:\devkitPro\portlibs\ppc, and then I made an include and lib folder and put them inside ppc, and then I put the zlib headers and libs in their appropriate spots in these folders, and it worked. Yay

=D