I have been trying to update the build system for quite some time. I've set up a new project and imported the libdaisy files (code/libdaisy2). This builds and plays fine on my computer. It is probably better and more portable than our old handcrafted makefiles. I also hope this is a better base for creating debian-packages. Please give it a try. I've spent some time reading up on linux development, and I'm pondering on some ideas for simplifying and restructuring libdaisy in the future.
To eliminate some of the mysteries of "works fine on my computer", I would suggest you build inside a chroot; a sandboxed file system. To make a clean environment, use debootstrap to install "Debian inside Debian", (or Fedora, if you like). If you need handholding, I'm hermanr on IRC ;-) -- Herman Robak