I was hoping that someone has built a recent distribution
(web2c-7.0) of LaTeX; if so, what is the trick?  

I've downloaded the most recent release (texmf, web, web2c) and
tried building several times now.  Each time I get through the
configure, and then make, it appears if kpathsea doesn't get any
input files.  I've placed texmf in /usr/local/lib and have the
$datadir variable pointing to that directory.  The reason why I
suspect it's a NetBSD concern is that this identical install
procedure appears to work perfectly on an HP-UX 10.20 system as
well as an SGI running Irix 6.2.  I should say that I'm running
NetBSD 1.2.1 on a IIsi.  The error message I get is:

cd ./kpathsea && make   CC='gcc' CFLAGS='-g -O2 '
prefix=/usr/local exec_prefix=/usr/local  bindir=/usr/local/bin
scriptdir=/usr/local/bin libdir=/usr/local/lib
datadir=/usr/local/lib infodir=/usr/local/info
includedir=/usr/local/include  manext=1
mandir=/usr/local/man/man1  texmf=/usr/local/lib/texmf
web2cdir=/usr/local/lib/texmf/web2c
texinputdir=/usr/local/lib/texmf/tex
mfinputdir=/usr/local/lib/texmf/metafont
mpinputdir=/usr/local/lib/texmf/metapost
fontdir=/usr/local/lib/texmf/fonts
fmtdir=/usr/local/lib/texmf/web2c
basedir=/usr/local/lib/texmf/web2c
memdir=/usr/local/lib/texmf/web2c
texpooldir=/usr/local/lib/texmf/web2c
mfpooldir=/usr/local/lib/texmf/web2c
mppooldir=/usr/local/lib/texmf/web2c
dvips_plain_macrodir=/usr/local/lib/texmf/tex/plain/dvip
./../klibtool compile gcc  -DHAVE_CONFIG_H  -I.  -I. 


basename: illegal option -- D
usage: basename string [suffix]
gcc -DHAVE_CONFIG_H -I. -I. -I.. -I./.. -g -O2 -c -o STATIC/.o
gcc: No input files
*** Error code 1

Stop.
*** Error code 1

Stop.


-- 
	Kelvin Chu				Office: 505.665.1983
	chu@biophysics.lanl.gov			   Fax: 505.665.4507