The latest release of autoconf-2.59b, dated 28-Dec-2005, fails to include correct X11R6 paths in configure scripts on AMD64 systems running GNU/Linux.
Those machines support both a 32-bit world and a default 64-bit world. For the latter, libraries are found in directories that end in 64: /lib64, /usr/lib64, /usr/X11R6/lib64, ... While the linker knows about the first two, it doesn't know about the X11R6 tree. The configure script generated by autoconf contains these directories (here, in the new xterm-203 distribution from ftp://invisible-island.net/xterm/xterm.tar.gz): % grep '/X11' configure | tr -d ' \\' | sort -u | grep '^/' | pr -t -c2 /lib/usr/lib/X11 /usr/local/X11/lib /usr/include/X11 /usr/local/X11R4/include /usr/include/X11R4 /usr/local/X11R4/lib /usr/include/X11R5 /usr/local/X11R5/include /usr/include/X11R6 /usr/local/X11R5/lib /usr/lib/X11 /usr/local/X11R6/include /usr/lib/X11R4 /usr/local/X11R6/lib /usr/lib/X11R5 /usr/X11/include /usr/lib/X11R6 /usr/X11/lib /usr/local/include/X11 /usr/X11R4/include /usr/local/include/X11R4 /usr/X11R4/lib /usr/local/include/X11R5 /usr/X11R5/include /usr/local/include/X11R6 /usr/X11R5/lib /usr/local/lib/X11 /usr/X11R6/include /usr/local/lib/X11R4 /usr/X11R6/lib /usr/local/lib/X11R5 /usr/XFree86/include/X11 /usr/local/lib/X11R6 /usr/XFree86/lib/X11 /usr/local/X11/include Notice that the X11R6/include directories are listed, as are the X11R6/lib ones, but the X11R6/lib64 directories are absent. This defect in autoconf has caused a number of GNU and non-GNU packages to fail to build on GNU/Linux AMD64 systems with the canonical recipe ./configure && make all check install In most cases, it is possible do a manual override, like this env LDFLAGS='-L/usr/X11R6/lib64 -Wl,-rpath,/usr/X11R6/lib64' ./configure && \ make all check install but the nuisance is that the -Wl option may be compiler dependent, and in any event, it goes against the goal of autoconf of providing a simple standard way to build software everywhere. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - Nelson H. F. Beebe Tel: +1 801 581 5254 - - University of Utah FAX: +1 801 581 4148 - - Department of Mathematics, 110 LCB Internet e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] - - 155 S 1400 E RM 233 [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] - - Salt Lake City, UT 84112-0090, USA URL: http://www.math.utah.edu/~beebe - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------