Martin, I did this, but it still failed in the same manner. Here is an excerpt from configure: machine='' opsys='' case "$canonical" in sparc-*-* ) machine=sparc ;; alpha*-*-* ) machine=alpha ;; vax-*-* ) machine=vax ;; mips-dec-* ) machine=pmax ;; mips-sgi-* ) machine=iris4d ;; romp-ibm-* ) machine=ibmrt ;; rs6000-ibm-aix* ) machine=ibmrs6000 ;; powerpc-ibm-aix* ) machine=ibmrs6000 ;; powerpc*-* ) machine=powerpc ;; hppa-*-* ) machine=hp800 ;; m88k-dg-* ) machine=aviion ;; m68*-sony-* ) machine=news ;; mips-sony-* ) machine=news-risc ;; clipper-* ) machine=clipper ;; esac In any case, I manually built with alpha-dec-osf4.0c --cflags="-O3 -arch ev56 -std" --without-gcc and it pretty much did fine. (My report to follow to xemacs-beta.) Figuring out the processor type and automatically generating the correct flags would be nice for at least cc and I would assume gcc, as well. R. Kevin Oberman, Network Engineer Energy Sciences Network (ESnet) Ernest O. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) E-mail: oberman(a)es.net Phone: +1 510 486-8634