Just wanted to mention another approach that avoids guessing at which files need to be touched and in what order. This is what I use in debian/rules when I need to modify automake source files:
# Suppress accidental execution of the auto-* tools; see # http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2001/debian-devel-200111/msg01416.html # no_auto_tools = ACLOCAL="`pwd`/missing aclocal" \ AUTOCONF="`pwd`/missing autoconf" \ AUTOMAKE="`pwd`/missing automake" \ AUTOHEADER="`pwd`/missing autoheader" [...] build-stamp: [...] $(MAKE) $(no_auto_tools) Cheers, -Steve