RedHat Rawhide, gcc 3.2.2, 2.5.64 kernel, i386 (ok, so I live dangerously ;) So I do a 'cvs update', and try to build. Generating custom-load.el... Compiling /home/valdis/src/xemacs-21.5/lisp/mule/custom-load.el... Wrote /home/valdis/src/xemacs-21.5/lisp/mule/custom-load.elc Building finder database ... ./xemacs -no-packages -batch -eval "(setq finder-compile-keywords-quiet t)" \ -l finder -f finder-compile-keywords xemacs exiting. Buffer is read-only: #<buffer "finder-inf.el">make[1]: *** [/home/valdis/src/xemacs-21.5/src/../lisp/finder-inf.el] Error 255 Took me quite a while to twig onto the fact that *BUFFER* was read-only because the underlying *FILE* was mode 644 but owned by 'root'. The *REAL* problem was the previous 'make install' back a few weeks ago did this: (No files need saving) Loading /home/valdis/src/xemacs-21.5/lisp/auto-autoloads... Loading /home/valdis/src/xemacs-21.5/lisp/mule/auto-autoloads... Removing old or spurious .elcs in directory tree `/home/valdis/src/xemacs-21.5/src/../lisp'... Removing out-of-date /home/valdis/src/xemacs-21.5/lisp/finder-inf.elc Removing old or spurious .elcs in directory tree `/home/valdis/src/xemacs-21.5/src/../lisp'...done Recompiling updated .els in directory tree `/home/valdis/src/xemacs-21.5/src/../lisp'... Compiling /home/valdis/src/xemacs-21.5/lisp/finder-inf.el... Wrote /home/valdis/src/xemacs-21.5/lisp/finder-inf.elc Recompiling updated .els in directory tree `/home/valdis/src/xemacs-21.5/src/../lisp'...done So *BAM* finder-inf.el is owned by root rather than me. And I re-tried it.. 'chown -R valdis .' as root, then a 'make all' as myself rebuilt finder-inf.el - and them 'make install' turned right around and re-re-built it. So the next 'make all' as myself loses. auto-autoloads seems to have a similar issue... Methinks there's an overzealous dependency in there someplace... /Valdis