A: You may be using the Bash shell (/bin/bash) as a replacement for the Bourne shell (/bin/sh). We have reports that, at least under LINUX, Bash does not properly handle return codes in expressions. One fix is to use a different shell, such as /bin/ash, on those systems.
This won't work on some LINUX systems ( every shell is broken). We have reports that the following will work:
checking gnumake... 1: Bad file numberA: Some versions of the bash shell do not handle output redirection correctly. Either upgrade your version of bash or run configure under another shell (such as /bin/sh). Make sure that the version of sh that you use is not an alias for bash. configure trys to detect this situation and will normally issue an error message.