automake & friends

[Michael Hudson <mwh21 cam ac uk>]

Hi all

I recently had trouble installing gnome-objc and found that I needed
automake 1.3 vs the 1.2 I had installed.
That was easy, visit local gnu mirror, dl, untar, make, install.
Still it would be nice if configure could spot this one coming, ie produce
output like:

creating cache ./config.cache
checking for a BSD compatible install... /usr/bin/install -c
checking whether build environment is sane... yes
checking whether make sets ${MAKE}... yes
checking for working aclocal... found
checking for working autoconf... found
checking for working automake... found
Ack! This package requires automake 1.3!
Stop.

This seems such a simple thing, and it would certainly save swearing.
I don't know how to work automake (but I'd like to learn...), or I'd
submit a patch, but I don't. Sorry.

Michael Hudson
Jesus College
Cambridge
mwh21@cam.ac.uk