The problem is that kdelibs 3.1.4 will not build with a version of autoconf <= 2.5.7. The problem is that any version of autoconf higher than this is marked unstable. This doesn't seem to make sense. I've just recently noticed this on a new install. This must be a recent change since my station has autoconf 2.5.7 and I was able to build kdelibs 3.1.4 awhile back with no issues. Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. 2. 3. Portage 2.0.49-r20 (default-x86-1.4, gcc-3.2.3, glibc-2.3.2-r3, 2.6.1-mm2) ================================================================= System uname: 2.6.1-mm2 i686 AMD Athlon(tm) XP 1700+ Gentoo Base System version 1.4.3.10p1 distcc 2.11.1 i686-pc-linux-gnu (protocols 1 and 2) (default port 3632) [disabled] ccache version 2.3 [enabled] ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="x86" AUTOCLEAN="yes" CFLAGS="-march=athlon-xp -O3 -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer -m3dnow -mmmx -fprefetch-loop-arrays -msse -mfpmath=sse" CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu" COMPILER="gcc3" CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xkb /usr/kde/2/share/config /usr/kde/3.1/share/config /usr/kde/3/share/config /usr/share/config /var/qmail/control" CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/gconf /etc/env.d" CXXFLAGS="-march=athlon-xp -O3 -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer -m3dnow -mmmx -fprefetch-loop-arrays -msse -mfpmath=sse" DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles" FEATURES="autoaddcvs ccache fixpackages sandbox" GENTOO_MIRRORS="http://gentoo.chem.wisc.edu/gentoo/ http://gentoo.noved.org/ http://mirrors.tds.net/gentoo http://adelie.polymtl.ca/" MAKEOPTS="-j2" PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages" PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp" PORTDIR="/usr/portage" PORTDIR_OVERLAY="" SYNC="rsync://rsync.us.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage" USE="X aalib alsa apm arts avi berkdb bonobo cdr crypt cups dvd encode esd foomaticdb gdbm gif gnome gphoto2 gpm gtk gtk2 gtkhtml guile imlib java jpeg kde ldap libg++ libwww mad mikmod mmx motif mozcalendar mozilla moznocompose moznoirc mpeg ncurses nls oggvorbis opengl oss pam pda pdflib perl png postgres python qt quicktime readline samba scanner sdl slang spell sse ssl svga tcltk tcpd tiff truetype x86 xml2 xmms xv zlib"
About as soon as I submitted this I saw autoconf 2.5.8 go stable so the problem is now fixed so I'm marking this one fixed. Problem is also mentioned in bug 33216.