Re: [TCLUG:4216] aclocal, automake, autoconf, and CVS

[John R Sheets <dusk@smsi-roman.com>]

dchristian@goliath.dorms1.macalester.edu wrote:
> 
> But almost every time I've tried to run ./autogen.sh, I've run into the
> following type of error:
> ---
> capples/url-properties/Makefile.am:12: variable `GNOME_LIBDIR' not defined
> ---
> now the specific Makefile.am changes and the variable switches from
> GNOMEUI_LIBS to INTLLIBS to GTKXHTML_LIBS, but I don't think it should
> matter because as far as I know, I've installed all the appropriate
> packages

It makes a difference where you install automake and autoconf. 
If you don't install them off the same directory (e.g. /usr/),
they will install their macros in different places, and will be
unable to find and parse each other's macros.  The same goes for
any source package that installs its own macros (e.g. GTK+,
GNOME, etc.).

You can fix this by moving all your macros (*.m4) to the same
common directory, and then symlinking the duplicate directories
to the main one.  If you installed automake & autoconf through a
package manager, the macros directory is probably something like
/usr/share/aclocal/.  If you installed via tarballs, it's
probably /usr/local/share/aclocal/.  (I think that's
correct...I'm going from memory.)  If you installed one as a
tarball and one as an rpm, for example, then you would have
similar problems.

My guess is that the GNOME macros are in
/usr/local/share/aclocal, while autoconf & automake are in
/usr/share/aclocal.  You can either move the GNOME ones to
/usr/share/aclocal, or do this (shell-dependent):

 export ACLOCAL_FLAGS='-I /usr/share/aclocal'

Make sure you keep the space after -I.

That should get you started, anyway.  Let me know how it goes.

John