Error During Autoconf

[Joe Sprankle]

Hi all,
Brand new to this.
I'm attempting to learn to build kdrive and not off to a good start.
Configure.ac says to run autoconf to create configure script.
I'm receiving the following error:

foo at foo:~/Desktop/xorg-server-1.6.1.901$ autoconf
configure.ac:31: error: possibly undefined macro: AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE
      If this token and others are legitimate, please use
m4_pattern_allow.
      See the Autoconf documentation.
configure.ac:32: error: possibly undefined macro: AM_MAINTAINER_MODE
configure.ac:55: error: possibly undefined macro: AM_PROG_AS
configure.ac:58: error: possibly undefined macro: AC_LIBTOOL_WIN32_DLL
configure.ac:59: error: possibly undefined macro: AC_DISABLE_STATIC
configure.ac:60: error: possibly undefined macro: AC_PROG_LIBTOOL
configure.ac:100: error: possibly undefined macro: AM_CONDITIONAL
configure.ac:595: error: possibly undefined macro:
XTRANS_CONNECTION_FLAGS
configure.ac:1049: error: possibly undefined macro: AC_DEFINE_DIR
configure.ac:1564: error: possibly undefined macro: _AM_DEPENDENCIES

Distro Ubuntu Hardy

I'm totally new to this and have to get a custom kdrive build for work
if I can pull it off.
Can anyone recommend a howto or a place to educate myself on how to even
start learning this?
Other than this list and it's archives, I cannot seem to find any
documentation.
Am I missing something?