And, for a lot of consumer routers, you'd have to configure IPv6 by editing text files from the command line, because they don't have the 8MB of memory that's apparently needed to run any of those alternate firmwares with IPV6 support and a GUI for it. I spent hours searching for a firmware for my Buffalo 4MB router that would support IPV6 with a GUI. None exists. I'm running Tomato on it now, and it works great, but there is no IPv6 support. I refuse to risk my sanity to configuring IPV6 manually.

I just inquired about SonicWall also. IPv6 is only supported in a special build of their firmware that is about a year out of date in other features, and you have to request specially from them. I suspect that by the end of this year they'll have rolled it into their mainstream releases, but there's no published timeline. Their press release from last summer boasting IPv6 certification is misleading, in my view.

Trouble is, most consumer routers made before this year don't have enough memory (8MB) to run any of those alternate firmwares with IPV6 support and a GUI for it. At best, you could get IPV6 support but you would have to configure it by editing text files from the command line. I spent hours searching for a firmware for my Buffalo 4MB router that would support IPV6 with a GUI. None exists. I'm running Tomato on it now, and it works great, but there is no IPv6 support. I refuse to risk my sanity to configuring IPV6 manually.

It's true, pretty much. We developed configure scripts and ways to generate them in the days of 28.8kbps modems and they had to work on Unix System III and Xenix and HP-UX. We couldn't assume anything like Perl or Python was available. Linux distros were only just appearing, and there were no package management systems. Windows was still a 16-bit DOS shell. It was a different world. I'm amazed this stuff has endured as long as it has with so few changes. By the time Automake was written, several years after Autoconf, we at least felt we could assume the presence of Perl.

Want to know why it's called "Autoconf", which I think is a bit ugly of a name? I wanted to call it "Autoconfig", but when you add a version number and ".tgz" to that, you exceed the 14-character file name limit of some of the Unix variants it had to be downloaded and installed on!

Dave MacKenzie
Autoconf's main developer