pkg-config has built-in paths that it searches: $ pkg-config --variable pc_path pkg-config /usr/local/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/pkgconfig:/usr/local/lib/pkgconfig:/usr/local/share/pkgconfig:/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/pkgconfig:/usr/lib/pkgconfig:/usr/share/pkgconfig However, these are absolute, so they are different in a snap. This results in scripts that use pkg-config failing (such as https://github.com/ros-simulation/gazebo_ros_pkgs/blob/kinetic-devel/gazebo_ros/scripts/gzserver#L26). One solution might be setting the correct default paths in the PKG_CONFIG_PATH environment variable in the wrappers (similar to how PATH is treated).