Thank you for your interest in my issue.
I moved bison from /usr/src to /home/georanger and tried to compile but still had the same problems.
Please let me give you a description of what I am doing. Please bear with me if I have included too many details, but I don't know what may or may not be important.
Also, I realized I do not have the right error message posted in the title of this message. The real error message is ": bad interpreter: No such file or directory".
In case I corrupted some file while tinkering around, I decided to start over from the point where I downloaded and unzipped the package. Here is what I did, after erasing bison from my home directory.
1. From my desktop (which I found is GNOME 2.10.0) I copied (by drag-and-drop) the unzipped bison directory from my USB drive into /home/georanger. (I should mention that because I have WinModem I download stuff in Windows, put it on my USB drive, then boot to Linux. I previously unzipped bison in Windows using an older version of WinZip.)
2. I had previously went to the GNOME menu and ran a non-root terminal session. (If it helps, I noticed that when I log in as root I get a dialog box, where I type in my root password, that says the terminal will be /usr/bin/x-terminal-emulator.) So I changed to my home directory where I just copied bison and listed the files there.
Code:
georanger@Ophir:/usr/src/gcl-2.5.3$ cd /home/georanger
georanger@Ophir:~$ ls -l
total 8
drwxr-xr-x 13 georanger georanger 4096 1969-12-31 16:00 bison-2.1
drwxr-xr-x 4 georanger georanger 4096 2006-03-26 14:32 Desktop
3. Next I moved into the bison directory and listed the files there.
Code:
georanger@Ophir:~$ cd bis*
georanger@Ophir:~/bison-2.1$ ls -l
total 1320
-rwx------ 1 georanger georanger 39100 2005-09-16 16:56 ABOUT-NLS
-rwx------ 1 georanger georanger 34061 2005-09-16 16:57 aclocal.m4
-rwx------ 1 georanger georanger 224 1998-11-25 14:13 authors
drwxr-xr-x 2 georanger georanger 4096 1969-12-31 16:00 build-aux
-rwx------ 1 georanger georanger 520264 2005-09-16 16:54 ChangeLog
drwxr-xr-x 2 georanger georanger 4096 1969-12-31 16:00 config
-rwx------ 1 georanger georanger 10285 2005-09-16 16:58 config.hin
-rwx------ 1 georanger georanger 477632 2005-09-16 16:57 configure
-rwx------ 1 georanger georanger 4441 2005-09-16 16:54 configure.ac
-rwx------ 1 georanger georanger 18351 2005-05-14 00:49 copying
drwxr-xr-x 3 georanger georanger 4096 1969-12-31 16:00 data
drwxr-xr-x 2 georanger georanger 4096 1969-12-31 16:00 doc
drwxr-xr-x 3 georanger georanger 4096 1969-12-31 16:00 examples
-rwx------ 1 georanger georanger 2109 2005-05-14 00:49 GNUmakefile
-rwx------ 1 georanger georanger 9734 2005-09-16 16:56 install
drwxr-xr-x 2 georanger georanger 4096 1969-12-31 16:00 lib
drwxr-xr-x 2 georanger georanger 4096 1969-12-31 16:00 m4
-rwx------ 1 georanger georanger 1249 2005-09-11 23:50 Makefile.am
-rwx------ 1 georanger georanger 1707 2005-05-22 11:45 Makefile.cfg
-rwx------ 1 georanger georanger 23380 2005-09-16 16:57 Makefile.in
-rwx------ 1 georanger georanger 20359 2005-07-24 01:24 Makefile.maint
-rwx------ 1 georanger georanger 22466 2005-09-16 16:54 news
-rwx------ 1 georanger georanger 48345 2000-03-25 03:59 OChangeLog
-rwx------ 1 georanger georanger 2052 2005-07-18 16:10 PACKAGING
drwxr-xr-x 2 georanger georanger 4096 1969-12-31 16:00 po
-rwx------ 1 georanger georanger 1672 2005-05-23 17:19 readme
drwxr-xr-x 2 georanger georanger 4096 1969-12-31 16:00 runtime-po
drwxr-xr-x 2 georanger georanger 4096 1969-12-31 16:00 src
drwxr-xr-x 2 georanger georanger 4096 1969-12-31 16:00 tests
-rwx------ 1 georanger georanger 3859 2005-08-21 17:43 thanks
-rwx------ 1 georanger georanger 12289 2005-07-13 05:55 todo
4. Now I make configure executable.
Code:
georanger@Ophir:~/bison-2.1$ chmod +x configure
5. Now I try to run configure.
Code:
georanger@Ophir:~/bison-2.1$ ./configure
: bad interpreter: No such file or directory
6. Now I use nano to look at the first line of configure to see what shell it is trying to run, then I try to run it with that shell.
Code:
georanger@Ophir:~/bison-2.1$ nano configure
georanger@Ophir:~/bison-2.1$ sh configure
: command not found
configure: line 21: syntax error near unexpected token `elif'
configure: line 21: `elif test -n "${BASH_VERSION+set}" && (set -o posix) >/dev/null 2>&1' then
georanger@Ophir:~/bison-2.1$
7. Next, figuratively speaking, I calmly and quietly step into the garage, tie a noose, and hang myself from the rafters.
Is there something wrong with the /usr/bin/x-terminal-emulator that GNOME is trying to run?
Thank you for any help or ideas you might have,
GeoRanger