The automake development tool is used to generate build information files.
Automake Files
The package developer creates the Makefile.am automake file. The automake tool uses this file to create the build information files, which are packaged for used by the system installer at build time.
Build Information Files
The Makefile.in build information file contains information on how to build the package. The configure script uses information from Makefile.in to generate the project Makefile.
Error Messages
configure.ac: no proper invocation of AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE was found.
automake: Makefile.am: not supported: source file foobar.c is in subdirectory
The old version of automake does not support subdirectories. This error will occur if source code is placed across subdirectories.
Solution
Upgrade to a current version of automake or restructure source code directories.
Makefile.am: required file `./README' not found
Such errors:
Makefile.am: required file `./depcomp' not found Makefile.am: required file `./README' not found Makefile.am: required file `./INSTALL' not found Makefile.am: required file `./NEWS' not found Makefile.am: required file `./README' not found Makefile.am: required file `./AUTHORS' not found Makefile.am: required file `./ChangeLog' not found Makefile.am: required file `./COPYING' not found
should be fixed by creating INSTALL, NEWS, README, AUTHORS and ChangeLog files with actual content, followed by running:
1 $ automake --add-missing
or by replacing one of gnits, gnu, cygnus with foreign or adding foreign to AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE macro:
AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE([foreign color-tests dist-bzip2 parallel-tests])
in case these files do not make sense on such project.