make check failures

[Graham Reitz]

After a successful build, make check yields:

=====================================
628 of 650 tests failed
(79 tests were not run)
See tests/test-suite.log
Please report to address@hidden
=====================================
make[3]: *** [test-suite.log] Error 1
make[2]: *** [check-TESTS] Error 2
make[1]: *** [check-am] Error 2
make: *** [check-recursive] Error 1


Configure:
./../../gnu/automake/automake-1.11/configure --prefix=$HOME/root/usr/local 
AUTOCONF=$HOMEt/root/usr/local/bin/autoconf 
AUTOM4TE=$HOMEt/root/usr/local/bin/autom4te

configure is invoked from separate build directory (pointing this out as some 
gnu source builds insist configure be called from outside the source directory 
and others from inside).

I suspect the make check errors have something to do with needing a dirlist (as 
Daniel pointed out).   

In this case, where make check is run from the build directory outside the 
source directory, where should the dirlist file go (what is considered acdir)?

Kindly,
Graham