[geeks] Need a software builder cluebat, pls

[velociraptor]

So, I'm fighting with PHP+Apache on RHAS 4 (x64, even).

It's failing with an error (libphp5.so is not being generated) that the PHP
team says is a bug/feature of libtool:

http://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=36852
"If it works with this configure line, there is no bug:
rm config.cache ; ./configure --disable-all --with-apxs2
If that works, there is propably some static library that PHP is linked
with and then libtool thinks you want the whole thing as static. (this
is a libtool bug, not PHP bug)"

And I've confirmed that if I configure PHP to build with minimal options
(--with-apxs2="path/to/apxs" --prefix="install/dir"), that libphp5.so does
get built.

So, can someone enlighten me as to how I should go about tracking down
which lib is trying to be linked statically vs. dynamically?  I mean, I suppose
I could just iterate through the options with make, and will if I have to, but
is their a more efficient way?

I've been spinning my wheels for over a day kludging around unrecognized
x64 library locations, resolving dependencies[0] and figuring out how to
manually tweak the Makefile to even get it to accept mod_php as a target,
as it was completely ignoring --with-apxs2 in the configure options.[1]

Cluebats more than welcome, as they have to be less brain-numbing than
this mess.

TIA--
=Nadine=

[0] Insert obligatory RedHat & RPM hatred.
[1] It would also really, really be nice if people who wrote software
documented all their software's options, especially things like which
flags are incompatible, or mutually exclusive, or whatever, as this is
most likely the problem with that option being ignored.