Default build fails on generic debian because missing ./depcomp

[phord]

When I try to build the usual way under Linux Mint (Debian) I get an error about a missing utility, depcomp:

$ autoconf
$ ./configure 
$ make
make  all-recursive
make[1]: Entering directory `/home/hordp/git/opc/colortail'
Making all in example-conf
make[2]: Entering directory `/home/hordp/git/opc/colortail/example-conf'
make[2]: Nothing to be done for `all'.
make[2]: Leaving directory `/home/hordp/git/opc/colortail/example-conf'
make[2]: Entering directory `/home/hordp/git/opc/colortail'
source='CfgFileParser.cc' object='CfgFileParser.o' libtool=no \
    DEPDIR=.deps depmode=none /bin/bash ./depcomp \
    g++ -DHAVE_CONFIG_H -I.     -g -O2 -c -o CfgFileParser.o CfgFileParser.cc
/bin/bash: ./depcomp: No such file or directory
make[2]: *** [CfgFileParser.o] Error 127
make[2]: Leaving directory `/home/hordp/git/opc/colortail'
make[1]: *** [all-recursive] Error 1
make[1]: Leaving directory `/home/hordp/git/opc/colortail'
make: *** [all] Error 2

[phord]

I was able to work around it two different ways. Either one of these works:

1. symlink the depcomp tool from automake like this: ln -s /usr/share/automake-1.14/depcomp
2. Configure with a special flag: ./configure --disable-dependency-tracking

[fiddybux]

Thanks, this solution worked well for compiling b-em (BBC Emulator) on bunsenlabs (debian stretch).

[barsnick]

The included autogen.sh handles this, by calling automake --add-missing, which is what you should be calling before autoconf, if not using said script.