>> >   checking whether build environment is sane... configure: error: newly
>> >   created file is older than distributed files!

sounds like the time on your nfs server is behind the time on your nfs
client.

>> I am not sure how to fix your problem, but you may be able to workaround
>> it by touch(1)ing the file.

touch explicitly sets the times on the file.  otherwise files just get
someone's view (in this case, the nfs server's) of the current time.
try this:

 $ touch client > server
 $ ls -lTrt client server

and see which file is first and what the time difference between the
two is.

>Apparently, the file is deleted and created every time I type "make", so
>this won't work (unless I edit the Makefile or something).

perl builds do this a lot.

>After a few attempts, the build succeeded, so I'm (almost) happy for now..
>;)

you can always wait the duration of the time difference between your
client and server.

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