Re: Should libXt-devel be required to build Emacs?

[Henrik Enberg]

Jan Djärv <address@hidden> writes:
> Henrik Enberg skrev:
> > Richard Stallman <address@hidden> writes:
> >>     > That's not so bad.  Most users don't need to rebuild the configure
> >>     > file, so they won't have a problem.
> >>     >
> >>     > However, we could ask the Autoconf developers to release a patched
> >>     > version 2.59.1 which fixes this bug and doesn't require a new M4.
> >>
> >>     On the other hand, most users don't compile Emacs at all; they use
> >>     pre-packaged binaries; those that do compile Emacs can surely install
> >>     libXt-dev.
> >>
> >> I don't remember all the details of the problem.  If libXt-dev is not
> >> installed, what happens when configure is correctly built with
> >> autoconf 2.61?  Does compilation fail because libXt-dev includes
> >> things needed for compilation?  Or does compilation work?
> > 
> > I just built Emacs on a brand new Debian system, and without libXt-dev,
> > the configure script doesn't find X11 at all, even when passing
> > --with-x.  So you end up with a non-x enabled Emacs.
> > 
> 
> But you probably didn't use autoconf 2.61.  If you had, you would have an X
> enabled Emacs.
> 
> < 2.61 and no libXt-dev:  configure fails to find X at all.
> 2.61   and no libXt-dev:  configure finds X correctly.

Hmm, no I did not have 2.6.1.  I did in fact not have autoconf installed
at all when it failed to find X, my shell history file reveals that I
installed libXt-dev and autoconf at the same time.  Does this then mean
that Emacs requires autoconf when just running configure?  Isn't the
point of the autotools suite that only people who _generate_ the build
scripts need them?