> Why is it that ./configure scripts, if they fail, almost always seem > to fail silently? For example I'll get a line like > > Checking for extremely important crucial dependency...no as i beginner developer, i encountered this in my own programs :) basically you list the dependencies you want in your configure.in file, and autoconf will hunt for them and append them to the compile line if they're found. by default it doesn't throw up an error, though, and so other developers who don't know this release code which won't compile elsewhere :) you can fix this yourself and submit patches to the author. hunt for a line like: AC_CHECK_LIB(mysqlclient, mysql_init) which won't die if it doesn't find it and replace with AC_CHECK_LIB(mysqlclient, mysql_init,, AC_MSG_ERROR([ Couldn't find libmysqlclient. Please check that it is installed.])) on a similar note: by modularising everything in debian, we tend to break a lot of source. as an example, a basic gnome desktop doesn't require libzvt-dev. yet a lot of apps only check for libgnomeui-dev, as they assume they're all part of the same package. i can't see any easy solution to this problem though :) cheers damien
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