Re: how to make autoconf?

[Eric Blake]

On 11/06/2011 04:36 PM, Manuel Morbitzer wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I want to install a new version of autoconf.

Thanks for the report.  I'd suggest installing 2.68 from a tarball, 
rather than trying to build autoconf.git, unless you are also planning 
on sending patches to autoconf.git.

> 1. Step:
> git clone git://git.sv.gnu.org/autoconf
>
> 2. Step
> cd autoconf
>
> 3. Step
> make

You missed some steps.  If you insist on building autoconf.git, then 
read README-hacking, which calls out these steps:

0. Pre-install a recent autoconf from a tarball (2.68 is recommended; 
README-hacking claims 2.60 or later will work although that may be 
outdated information) - this includes getting your choice of 
autoconf-nnn.tar.*z, unpacking it, running ./configure, make, make install.
1. clone autoconf.git
2. cd autoconf
3. autoreconf -vi
4. ./configure
5. make

> Surely it should be easy to compile autoconf. Autoconf and in any case. :-)

It's MUCH easier to compile autoconf from a tarball; since it's only 
developers that need to worry about bootstrapping autoconf.git.  But it 
is relatively easy to bootstrap even autoconf.git, if you are paying 
attention to the instructions present in autoconf.git.

--
Eric Blake   address@hidden    +1-801-349-2682
Libvirt virtualization library http://libvirt.org