I've also posted it in gnu.utils.help, but with only 120 messages there,
I thought the friendly gentoo-community would be more helpful , so
here goes:

I hate to ask this question, but I've really searched (a LOT) for/into
documentation on automake/autoconf/autoscan/header/..... .
But all docs seem to assume you already understand which tool does what.
After many hours of searching/reading/giving up I'm only getting a vague
idea which tool does what, never mind how to use it.
Is there anywhere a tutorial which uses something a bit more advanced
than a "hello world" and shows from beginning to end how to configure it
for final deployment with a simple "./configure && make && make install"?
I'm used to programming in windows with dev-cpp, I know the basics of
Makefiles, but now under linux I think emacs & gnu tools are the way to go.

Glen Vermeylen wrote:
> I hate to ask this question, but I've really searched (a LOT) for/into
> documentation on automake/autoconf/autoscan/header/...

Here are the original docs. That's how I learned it (searched long enough
for more beginner-friendly stuff, but no). Have fun*:

http://www.gnu.org/software/autoconf/manual/
http://www.gnu.org/software/automake/manual/
http://www.gnu.org/software/libtool/manual.html

Anno.

*) Certain amount of sarcasm may be contained in this phrase

Anno v. Heimburg wrote:
> Glen Vermeylen wrote:
>
>>I hate to ask this question, but I've really searched (a LOT) for/into
>>documentation on automake/autoconf/autoscan/header/...
>
>
> Here are the original docs. That's how I learned it (searched long enough
> for more beginner-friendly stuff, but no). Have fun*:
>
> http://www.gnu.org/software/autoconf/manual/
> http://www.gnu.org/software/automake/manual/
> http://www.gnu.org/software/libtool/manual.html
>
> Anno.
>
> *) Certain amount of sarcasm may be contained in this phrase
>
>
Aarghl, those are the ones I don't understand
Everywhere they say: it reads this, uses that, outputs this, checks
for.., requires...,...
But no-where a why!


..... After a few hours I saw this unsent newspost...
Status-update:
Although I've gotten automake to create makefiles twice in a row I still
don't understand how it works. The first time it just worked after
fiddling long enough... the second time it kept complaining about
AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE not used in configure.ac (it was, btw), but then using
aclocal-1.7 and automake-1.7 it gave an completely new error, I added
the missing AC_PROG_CXX to configure.ac, ran all the tools again and my
makefile's were created... I still don't know how... but they're there .
So not only is it a hell to learn, but I have to be careful of which
version I should use.

Next problem :
for this wx-windows project g++ needs flags `wx-config --cxxflags` for
the object files and `wx-config --libs` for the resulting executable.
Where and how do I put them? Slowly but steadily we're getting there ...

I must be getting the hand of this autotools-thingie; the autogenerated
files from KDevelop are starting to make sence.

Whell.. the rest is for another day. Tomorrow VB.NET exams :$. nn

Glen Vermeylen wrote:

>> Here are the original docs. That's how I learned it (searched long
>> enough for more beginner-friendly stuff, but no). Have fun*:
>>
>> http://www.gnu.org/software/autoconf/manual/
>> http://www.gnu.org/software/automake/manual/
>> http://www.gnu.org/software/libtool/manual.html
>
> Aarghl, those are the ones I don't understand Everywhere they say:
> it reads this, uses that, outputs this, checks for.., requires...,...
> But no-where a why!

Try http://sources.redhat.com/autobook

I haven't read it myself, but googling indicated that this might just be
the good book on the subject. I'm definitely giving it a read, later
on.

--
PeKaJe

I'm going to Vietnam at the request of the White House. President
Johnson says a war isn't really a war without my jokes. -- Bob Hope