I have these versions of autoconf installed: # eix -ce sys-devel/autoconf [I] sys-devel/autoconf (2.13(2.1)@11/08/2009 2.63-r1(2.5)@04/05/2009): Used to create autoconfiguration files # However, the xulrunner build breaks in a way that reeks of autoconf 2.63 being used (undefined macro). So I added an autoconf --version to src_prepare which confirmed my suspicion. I also checked what WANT_AUTOCONF is set to inside src_proepare and it is unset - even though the ebuild sets it to "2.1" at the top. So I added an "export WANT_AUTOCONF='2.1'" just before the eautoreconf line and this made it work. I don't know if this is due to mis-use of eclasses in xulrunner or a bug in one of the eclasses used, or maybe even the way portage handles phases. Tested on two different machines with the same results. Both are amd64 but I highly doubt it's arch-specific. # emerge --info Portage 2.1.7.4 (default/linux/amd64/10.0, gcc-4.3.4, glibc-2.11-r0, 2.6.31.3 x86_64) ================================================================= System uname: Linux-2.6.31.3-x86_64-AMD_Phenom-tm-_II_X4_920_Processor-with-gentoo-2.0.1 Timestamp of tree: Sun, 08 Nov 2009 10:45:01 +0000 distcc 3.1 x86_64-pc-linux-gnu [disabled] app-shells/bash: 3.2_p48-r1 dev-java/java-config: 2.1.9-r1 dev-lang/python: 2.6.4, 3.1.1-r1 dev-python/pycrypto: 2.1.0_beta1 dev-util/cmake: 2.6.4-r3 sys-apps/baselayout: 2.0.1 sys-apps/openrc: 0.5.2-r1 sys-apps/sandbox: 2.2 sys-devel/autoconf: 2.13, 2.63-r1 sys-devel/automake: 1.9.6-r2, 1.10.2, 1.11 sys-devel/binutils: 2.20 sys-devel/gcc-config: 1.4.1 sys-devel/libtool: 2.2.6a virtual/os-headers: 2.6.30-r1 ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="amd64 ~amd64" CBUILD="x86_64-pc-linux-gnu" CFLAGS="-O2 -march=k8 -pipe -msse3" CHOST="x86_64-pc-linux-gnu" CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /usr/kde/3.5/env /usr/kde/3.5/share/config /usr/kde/3.5/shutdown /usr/share/X11/xkb /usr/share/config" CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/ca-certificates.conf /etc/env.d /etc/env.d/java/ /etc/fonts/fonts.conf /etc/gconf /etc/gentoo-release /etc/revdep-rebuild /etc/sandbox.d /etc/terminfo /etc/texmf/language.dat.d /etc/texmf/language.def.d /etc/texmf/updmap.d /etc/texmf/web2c /etc/udev/rules.d" CXXFLAGS="-O2 -march=k8 -pipe -msse3" DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles" FEATURES="assume-digests buildsyspkg distlocks fixpackages news parallel-fetch protect-owned sandbox sfperms strict unmerge-logs unmerge-orphans userfetch userpriv usersandbox" GENTOO_MIRRORS="http://gentoo.tiscali.nl/" LC_ALL="en_US.utf8" LDFLAGS="-Wl,-O1" MAKEOPTS="-j5" PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages" PORTAGE_CONFIGROOT="/" PORTAGE_RSYNC_EXTRA_OPTS="--exclude lost+found" PORTAGE_RSYNC_OPTS="--recursive --links --safe-links --perms --times --compress --force --whole-file --delete --stats --timeout=180 --exclude=/distfiles --exclude=/local --exclude=/packages" PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp" PORTDIR="/usr/portage" PORTDIR_OVERLAY="/usr/local/portage" SYNC="rsync://rsync5.de.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage" USE="3dnow 3dnowext X a52 acl alsa amd64 apache2 audacious audiofile bash-completion berkdb bmp bzip2 calendar caps cdparanoia cdr cli cracklib crypt cups dio dri dts dvd dvdr dvdread encode ethereal exif ffmpeg fftw firefox fortran ftp gdbm gif glitz gpm gtk iconv imlib2 jpeg kdeenablefinal ladcca lame lcms lua mad matroska mmap mmx mng modules moznocompose moznoirc moznomail mozsvg mp3 mpeg mplayer mudflap multilib mysqli ncurses nls nptl nptlonly offensive ogg opengl openmp pam pcre pdflib perl png ppds pppd python qt4 readline recode reflection session sharedmem sockets sox spl srt sse sse2 ssl svg sysfs szip tcpd tetex theora unicode usb v4l v4l2 vcd vim vim-pager vlm vorbis wmf xcb xcomposite xorg xosd xpm xscreensaver xvid zlib" ALSA_CARDS="emu10k1 ice1724" ALSA_PCM_PLUGINS="adpcm alaw asym copy dmix dshare dsnoop empty extplug file hooks iec958 ioplug ladspa lfloat linear meter mmap_emul mulaw multi null plug rate route share shm softvol" APACHE2_MODULES="actions alias auth_basic authn_alias authn_anon authn_dbm authn_default authn_file authz_dbm authz_default authz_groupfile authz_host authz_owner authz_user autoindex cache dav dav_fs dav_lock deflate dir disk_cache env expires ext_filter file_cache filter headers include info log_config logio mem_cache mime mime_magic negotiation rewrite setenvif speling status unique_id userdir usertrack vhost_alias" CAMERAS="ptp2" ELIBC="glibc" INPUT_DEVICES="keyboard mouse" KERNEL="linux" LCD_DEVICES="bayrad cfontz cfontz633 glk hd44780 lb216 lcdm001 mtxorb ncurses text" USERLAND="GNU" VIDEO_CARDS="vesa radeon radeonhd" Unset: CPPFLAGS, CTARGET, EMERGE_DEFAULT_OPTS, FFLAGS, INSTALL_MASK, LANG, LINGUAS, PORTAGE_COMPRESS, PORTAGE_COMPRESS_FLAGS
More testing revealed that this is "fixed" by using bash-4 instead of bash-3, so I suspect some variable scoping issue being the root cause.
This was caused by a bash3/4 cinompatibility which was fixed by arfrever in r14804, closing.
