How do I get the latest automake?

Question

This is very similar to https://askubuntu.com/questions/453660/warning-automake-1-11-is-probably-too-old

On Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, I'm getting the following error message:

WARNING: 'automake-1.14' is missing on your system.
         You should only need it if you modified 'Makefile.am' or
         'configure.ac' or m4 files included by 'configure.ac'.
         The 'automake' program is part of the GNU Automake package:
         <http://www.gnu.org/software/automake>
         It also requires GNU Autoconf, GNU m4 and Perl in order to run:
         <http://www.gnu.org/software/autoconf>
         <http://www.gnu.org/software/m4/>
         <http://www.perl.org/>
make: *** [../Makefile.in] Error 1

I've tried to use apt-get to install the latest automake but it claims that I'm already up to date. The automake version I have, however, is 1.11, so clearly I'm not up to date. I do want to keep automake1.11 on the system so I don't break anything that is relying on it.

How do I get the latest version so I can get past this error?

Answer 1

Use

sudo apt-get autoremove automake
sudo apt-get install automake

This should get you to version 1.14.1, that is the result for my system 14.04.

Answer 2

On Ubuntu Packages, automake 1.14 is available only for Trusty and above. But of course you can build the package yourself.

Debian Git Repository, Groovy Automake Package - also here you can download binaries.

Compiling Easy How To.

Good luck.

Answer 3

If the problem persists, you can use this script from git or here it is

#!/bin/bash


# run as root only
if [[ $EUID -ne 0 ]] ; then
    echo -e "\e[1;39m[   \e[31mError\e[39m   ] need root access to run this script\e[0;39m"
    exit 1
fi

function install_automake() {
    [ $# -eq 0 ] && { run_error "Usage: install_automake <version>"; exit; }
    local VERSION=${1}
    wget ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/automake/automake-${VERSION}.tar.gz &> /dev/null
    if [ -f "automake-${VERSION}.tar.gz" ]; then
            tar -xzf automake-${VERSION}.tar.gz
            cd automake-${VERSION}/
            ./configure
            make && make install
            echo -e "\e[1;39m[   \e[1;32mOK\e[39m   ] automake-${VERSION} installed\e[0;39m"

        else
            echo -e "\e[1;39m[   \e[31mError\e[39m   ] cannot fetch file from ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/automake/ \e[0;39m"
            exit 1
    fi
}
install_automake 1.15