* Robert Rehammar wrote on Tue, Aug 19, 2008 at 08:08:32AM CEST: > So the next thing would then be for configure to ask apt to download and > install libfoo, to meet the dependency. This way autotools would > integrate with (e.g.) apt to make installations more smooth. This would > save the user the work to download and install all packages that bar > depends on and that exists in the apt repository. If the dependencies are already listed in apt's database, then 'apt-get build-dep libfoo' should be all you ever need. If not, then I don't see how Autoconf can behave better than it does now: the mapping of software given as source to packaging names is still quite distribution-dependent. So if you like, a good way out would be this, in pseudo-code: if $missing_libfoo; then AC_MSG_ERROR([This package needs $libfoo. Please tell your system administrator to `apt-get build-dep $PACKAGE]) fi with possibly adjusting for apt, rpm, etc. What more could Autoconf provide? Cheers, Ralf _______________________________________________ Autoconf mailing list Autoconf@xxxxxxx http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/autoconf