configure script does not fail and stop when it should

[<rdiezmail-emacs@yahoo.de>]

Hi all:

I recently had some trouble building emacs 22.1 on Debian 4.0r1. I
don't know that much about emacs or Linux, but hopefully my experience
will help others avoid the following problems. I just downloaded the
sources and did:

  ./configure
  make

Point 1) I have a fully-functional Linux system with X Windows, Gnome
and so on. When I build emacs, I expect it to automatically build with
X Windows support.

I would expect the configure script to detect a running/installed X
Windows, and then perhaps complain that the development headers /
libraries for X Windows are not available. I mean, I expect "configure"
to fail, that means, to NOT generate a makefile. It would be nice if it
then said something along the line "you probably need to install the X
Windows development files/package/whatever".

I know the INSTALL file says I should review the libraries that were
automatically found, but like the INSTALL file also says:

  If the details printed by `configure' don't make any sense to
  you, assume that `configure' did its job and proceed.

What I got instead was an Emacs binary that would not start due to some
weird TERMCAP error.


Point 2) After some googling, I finally realised I had to be explicit
and say:

  ./configure --with-x
  
But I did not have the development headers and so on. So I ended up
with the same lame emacs binary.

At this point I thought: if I explicitly say "I want X Windows", then
the "configure" script should fail and NOT generate a makefile if it
cannot find the necessary headers / libraries. Like I said above, it
would be nice if the "configure" script said in the error message
something along the line "you probably need to install the X Windows
development files/package/whatever".

I could probably read INSTALL thoroughly and learn a lot more in order
to avoid these problems, but I think these little things would help
save everybody's time.

Thanks,
  Ruben





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