[avrdude-dev] autoconf and friends

[Theodore A. Roth]

Hi,

Before I dig into the autoconfication of avrdude, we need to think
about what versions to use.

avr-libc, simulavr and uisp all use the following:

Autoconf version 2.13
automake (GNU automake) 1.4-p6 (plus or minus on the patch level
though)

Those are getting pretty old. The gnu tools folks (gcc, binutils, gdb,
etc) have been moving to newer tools (don't remember the exact
versions off the top of my head though).

The default tools on my RedHat-8.0 box are autoconf-2.53 and
automake-1.6.3 (libtool 1.4.2, but I don't think we'll need that since
we aren't building libs or loadable modules).

The same tools are available on my debian system.

How's the availability on FreeBSD and windows?

At some point we're going to have to move to newer tools on the other
projects, so it might be less painful to set up avrdude with the
newer tools from the get go. It would also act as a learning
aide to get a feel for what it will take to move the other projects
from the distant past up to nearly the present. ;-)

Ted