I had the same problem with 3.23.32 and solved it with a quick hack. 
May be someone else who knows a bit more about configure, libtool, ltconfig,
etc. than I do, can solve this problem in the proper way.
I don't think it has much  to do with setting the search path for shared
libraries.
This is what happens when you compile one of the client apps: 

Step 1)
c++ -DUNDEF_THREADS_HACK -I./../include -I../include -I./.. -I..  -I..
-O3 -DDBUG_OFF   -fno-implicit-templates -c mysql.cc
Step 2)
/bin/sh ../libtool --mode=link c++  -O3 -DDBUG_OFF   -fno-implicit-templates
-R/usr/local/lib -o mysql  mysql.o readline.o sql_string.o completion_hash.o
../readline/libreadline.a -lcurses  ../libmysql/libmysqlclient.la  -lz
-lcrypt -lm
Step 3)
c++ -O3 -DDBUG_OFF -fno-implicit-templates -o .libs/mysql mysql.o readline.o
sql_string.o completion_hash.o ../readline/libreadline.a -lcurses
../libmysql/.libs/libmysqlclient.so -lz -lcrypt -lm -lz -lcrypt -lm
-Wl,--rpath -Wl,/usr/local/lib/mysql -Wl,--rpath -Wl,/usr/local/lib

The second step creates the definition of the third step. In the third step
I think including the shared library is wrong. So I changed the LDADD
definition in the Makefile in the client  directory near line 180, without
exactly knowing what I was doing, which is dangerous, but it solved the
problem. 

About line 180:
#LDADD =  ../libmysql/libmysqlclient.la
LDADD =  -L../libmysql/.libs -lmysqlclient -Wl,--rpath
-Wl,/usr/local/lib/mysql

If you run configure again, your changes will be lost.

Hope this helps


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Simas Mockevicius [mailto:symka@vejas.lt]
> Sent: woensdag 31 januari 2001 7:50
> To: port-i386@netbsd.org
> Subject: MySQL runtime error
> 
> 
> Hi all,
> 
> I don't know this is the right list for muy problem, but anyway:
> I have installed NetBSD 1.5 on my dual Pentium PRO IBM PC 
> Server 330. I have 128
> MB of RAM and also I have this problem:
> I have just installed MySQL server and client (version 
> 3.23.31) on NetBSD. MySQL
> daemon in safe mode runs perfectly, but when I wana to run 
> any other client or
> server software (eg. mysqladmin) I have this one error:
> 
> root@super:/usr/local/mysql/bin# ./mysqladmin
> Cannot open "../libmysql/.libs/libmysqlclient.so"
> root@super:/usr/local/mysql/bin#
> 
> What that's mean ?
> 
> Sincerely, 
> Simas Mockevicius
>