In this chapter, I've presented a high-level overview of the Autotools to give you a feel for how everything ties together. I've also shown you the pattern to follow when building software from distribution tarballs created by Autotools build systems. Finally, I've shown you how to install the Autotools and how to tell which versions you have installed.
In Chapter 2, we'll step away from the Autotools briefly and begin creating a hand-coded build system for a toy project called Jupiter. You'll learn the requirements of a reasonable build system, and you'll become familiar with the rationale behind the original design of the Autotools. With this background knowledge, you'll begin to understand why the Autotools do things the way they do. I can't really emphasize this enough: Chapter 2 is one of the most important chapters in this book.