diff --git a/src/sage/env.py b/src/sage/env.py
index 1ddfc7cfb9..45033d6328 100644
--- a/src/sage/env.py
+++ b/src/sage/env.py
@@ -203,97 +203,13 @@ var('ARB_LIBRARY',                   'arb')
 var('SAGE_BANNER', '')
 var('SAGE_IMPORTALL', 'yes')
 
-
-def _get_shared_lib_filename(libname, *additional_libnames):
-    """
-    Return the full path to a shared library file installed in
-    ``$SAGE_LOCAL/lib`` or the directories associated with the
-    Python sysconfig.
-
-    This can also be passed more than one library name (e.g. for cases where
-    some library may have multiple names depending on the platform) in which
-    case the first one found is returned.
-
-    This supports most *NIX variants (in which ``lib<libname>.so`` is found
-    under ``$SAGE_LOCAL/lib``), macOS (same, but with the ``.dylib``
-    extension), and Cygwin (under ``$SAGE_LOCAL/bin/cyg<libname>.dll``,
-    or ``$SAGE_LOCAL/bin/cyg<libname>-*.dll`` for versioned DLLs).
-
-    For distributions like Debian that use a multiarch layout, we also try the
-    multiarch lib paths (i.e. ``/usr/lib/<arch>/``).
-
-    This returns ``None`` if the file does not exist.
-
-    EXAMPLES::
-
-        sage: import sys
-        sage: from fnmatch import fnmatch
-        sage: from sage.env import _get_shared_lib_filename
-        sage: lib_filename = _get_shared_lib_filename("Singular",
-        ....:                                         "singular-Singular")
-        sage: if sys.platform == 'cygwin':
-        ....:     pattern = "*/cygSingular-*.dll"
-        ....: elif sys.platform == 'darwin':
-        ....:     pattern = "*/libSingular.dylib"
-        ....: else:
-        ....:     pattern = "*/lib*Singular.so"
-        sage: fnmatch(lib_filename, pattern)
-        True
-        sage: _get_shared_lib_filename("an_absurd_lib") is None
-        True
-    """
-
-    for libname in (libname,) + additional_libnames:
-        if sys.platform == 'cygwin':
-            # Later down we take the last matching DLL found, so search
-            # SAGE_LOCAL second so that it takes precedence
-            bindirs = [
-                sysconfig.get_config_var('BINDIR'),
-                os.path.join(SAGE_LOCAL, 'bin')
-            ]
-            pats = ['cyg{}.dll'.format(libname), 'cyg{}-*.dll'.format(libname)]
-            filenames = []
-            for bindir in bindirs:
-                for pat in pats:
-                    filenames += glob.glob(os.path.join(bindir, pat))
-
-            # Note: This is not very robust, since if there are multi DLL
-            # versions for the same library this just selects one more or less
-            # at arbitrary.  However, practically speaking, on Cygwin, there
-            # will only ever be one version
-            if filenames:
-                return filenames[-1]
-        else:
-            if sys.platform == 'darwin':
-                ext = 'dylib'
-            else:
-                ext = 'so'
-
-            libdirs = [
-                os.path.join(SAGE_LOCAL, 'lib'),
-                sysconfig.get_config_var('LIBDIR')
-            ]
-            multilib = sysconfig.get_config_var('MULTILIB')
-            if multilib:
-                libdirs.insert(1, os.path.join(libdirs[0], multilib))
-
-            for libdir in libdirs:
-                basename = 'lib{}.{}'.format(libname, ext)
-                filename = os.path.join(libdir, basename)
-                if os.path.exists(filename):
-                    return filename
-
-    # Just return None if no files were found
-    return None
-
-
 # locate singular shared object
 # On Debian it's libsingular-Singular so try that as well
-SINGULAR_SO = _get_shared_lib_filename('Singular', 'singular-Singular')
+SINGULAR_SO = '/default'
 var('SINGULAR_SO', SINGULAR_SO)
 
 # locate libgap shared object
-GAP_SO= _get_shared_lib_filename('gap','')
+GAP_SO = '/default'
 var('GAP_SO', GAP_SO)
 
 # post process