Compiling dpkg on a non-debian system

[Christian Czezatke <czezatke@xss.co.at>]

Hi!

I'm currently investigating several Linux packaging tools in order to come
up with a recommendation for my boss for a packaging format that we'll use
in the future for our own stuff... ;-) 

When it comes to deciding which package format to use, the decision
basically boils down to RPM vs. debian.

Actually, I'd prefer debian because it seems to offer some useful features
that RPM does not provide. In order to get some experience on how to build
packages, I'm currently playing around with rpm and would also like to do
so with the debian tools.

Unfortunately I have problems with building dpkg-1.4.0.23.2 on one of our
systems (which is _not_ running debian/GNU Linux). When I try to generate
a configure script on this box with

aclocal -I ./automake

I get:

czezatke@demo {615} % aclocal -I ./automake
aclocal: configure.in: 93: macro `AM_GNU_GETTEXT' not found in library
aclocal: configure.in: 112: macro `AM_PROG_LIBTOOL' not found in library

The version of autoconf that is installed on the system is 2.12, automake
is version 1.3.

I've also checked the debian bugtracking system and have found bug #27277
that looked similar to my problem (altough I'm not compiling dpkg on an
Alpha). I've also tried to apply the patch listed for bug #27277 that can
be found on

http://www.debian.org/Bugs/db/27/27277.html

Unfortunately this did not change the situation for me.

It would be very helpful if you could shed some light on these issues.
Maybe I'm just missing the obvious...

Thanks a lot in advance for your help!

     Christian

BTW: There seems to be a package out there called "dpkg-dev". --- Does
this package contain the missing automake stuff? -- I've only been able to
find a dpkg-dev package as a .deb package, which is not quite an option as
long as I don't have dpkg up and running... ;-)

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