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Everything you say is technically true, but I can't remember a time when just having the latest autotools from my distribution packages wasn't sufficient to bui
by NoGravitas 3y ago
Everything you say is technically true, but I can't remember a time when just having the latest autotools from my distribution packages wasn't sufficient to build a GNU package.
- kazinator 3y agoThat's either a lucky coincidence, or use of a pre-generated ./configure script, not Autotools. If you're actually running the steps to regenerate the Makefile.in from Makefile.am, and configure from configure.ac, and all that, then you run into the version or version range checks. For instance, I have working repo of GNU Make. In the generate Makefile there are lines like: AUTOMAKE = ${SHELL} /home/kaz/make/build-aux/missing automake-1.16 The generated script missing is a wrapper for the program such as automate-1.16, which prints an error if it is missing. This version requirement comes from the file boostrap.conf: # Build prerequisites buildreq="\ autoconf 2.69 automake 1.16.1 " These prereuisite versions are also mentioned in configure.ac: AC_PREREQ([2.69]) # [ ... ] AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE([1.16.1 foreign -Werror -Wall]) Literally, the Autotools source is asserting it must be processed by a certain version of the tools. Needless to say, these lines change in the git history.