Built-in variables are stored in the generated Makefile in ascending sort order. This results in dependency issues specifically for bindir and exec_prefix. after running './configure --prefix /usr'; the resulting Makefile variables are as follows:
... bindir = ${exec_prefix}/bin build_alias = builddir = . ... dvidir = ${docdir} exec_prefix = ${prefix} host_alias = ... pdfdir = ${docdir} prefix = /usr program_transform_name = s,x,x, ... The result is that when make install uses bindir, the value is "/bin", not "/usr/bin" Cheers, Jay