i've asked this before, and I thought I'd ask again since this has been bugging me (and no one really answered it)

(i'm on mandrake 9.2) is there any way to run configure when installing programs so that the makefiles have correct values for other dependencies? i end up having to edit the makefiles myself, and that's a big pain. for example, if i'm installing a program in /usr/local/programA and it needs files from /usr/local/programB, when I check the Makefile from running configure from programA, it'll say

top_builddir = .

and then reference some file needed from programB like this:
${top_builddir}//usr/local/programB/

this of course is not a correct way to get to programB. yet i have this problem everytime. anyone know why?

thanks