Re: Broken makefile given Autoconf version mismatch

[Steven P. Ulrick]

On Wed, 12 Apr 2006 14:17:53 +0200
Stepan Kasal <address@hidden> wrote:

> Hello,
>    as Bruno said, ``GCS doesn't mandate that the build will break.''
> I think we could be more careful and include some workarounds.
> 
> Generally, there are two problem situations:
> 
> Problem A:
> a script.sh.in starts with
> 
> prefix = @prefix@
> doc = @docdir@
> 
> this has to be fixed by adding `datarootdir = @datarootdir@' manually.
> I made this change for several tools used in Gnome, but I'm sure there
> are many tools which are not ready for this change, and will find out
> only when their root file system will suddenly
> contain /doc, /man, /info, and /locale.

Hello, Stepan
I had that EXACT thing happen to me when I was running Fedora Core 3.
I had updated to autoconf 2.59 from CVS because that was the only
version that GraphicsMagick would build with.  I THINK that I only had
that happen while compiling one application: KRename.  To save time, I
will quote the email that I wrote to the KRename developer about this:

> > > Hello, Dom :)
> > > I have just seen the wierdest thing after installing KRename from
> > > CVS earlier: despite the fact that I had configured KRename (as
> > > always) to be installed in the same path as my KDE from SVN
> > > install (/usr/local/kde-svn) the following subdirectories of
> > > KRename were dropped right in the / of the file system.  For
> > > example, instead of being installed in /usr/local/kde-svn/share,
> > > the following directories appear in /:
> > > /applications
> > > /apps
> > > /icons
> > > /locale
> > > /services
> >
> > Hello, Dom :)
> > At dinner this evening, I thought about something that I should try
> > before you look into this any further.  And I'm glad that I did...
> > One thing that confuses me is why this hasn't happened before.  But
> > I'm getting ahead of myself...
> > I installed autoconf-2.59c (CVS) so that I could build
> > GraphicsMagick from CVS.  GraphicsMagick compiles now, which is
> > good.  But what I tried when I got home from dinner was I
> > re-installed the autoconf-2.59 RPM that ships with FC3.  Recompiled
> > and installed KRename from a fresh download.  Guess what?  No
> > directories added to "/".  Then, I reinstalled autoconf-2.59c, and
> > installed the very same build of KRename that I JUST referred to
> > above, and guess what?  The five offending directories appeared in
> > "/", just like when I wrote my original email on this to you.  So
> > for now, I will only install autoconf-2.59c when something that I
> > want to build requires it.  I will also see how friendly their
> > mailing list seems.  Maybe I'll bring this up to them, and possibly
> > report it as a bug.  We'll see....
> >
> > Steven P. Ulrick

I am now running Fedora Core 5, which ships with autoconf-2.59-7.  But,
just for fun, I'm going to grab autoconf from CVS and compile & install
that.  Then I will grab a fresh copy of KRename from CVS and see what
happens when I install it.

Funny, this problem is the only reason that I joined this mailing
list :)

Steven P. Ulrick