Tip: Building psensor from git on Ubuntu 24.04 fails due to outdated autotools assumptions and missing dev headers

[Manamama]

Environment

• OS: Ubuntu 24.04.3 LTS
• Kernel: 6.8.0-90-generic
• Git commit / tag used: master (at time of cloning in early 2026)
• Last release tarball: ~10 years old

Problem 1 – Cannot install via apt / PPA (forcing git build)

The old PPA (ppa:jfi/psensor-unstable) no longer publishes packages for modern Ubuntu releases (no noble support).

Command tried:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:jfi/psensor-unstable
Result:
textUnable to handle repository shortcut 'ppa:/jfi/psensor-unstable'
Even the correct syntax fails because the PPA has no Release file for Noble.
→ This forces users to build from git instead of using the packaged version.
Problem 2 – Critical missing dependency: libsensors-dev
./configure succeeds but the build is crippled without sensor support.
Error seen during configure:
textchecking for sensors_init in -lsensors... no
checking sensors/sensors.h usability... no
checking sensors/sensors.h presence... no
checking for sensors/sensors.h... no

This is a hard stop — psensor is useless without lm-sensors integration.
Solution:
sudo apt install libsensors-dev
After this, ./configure correctly detects:

Checking for sensors_init in -lsensors... yes
checking for sensors/sensors.h... yes
Problem 3 – aclocal-1.15 not found during make (maintainer-mode regeneration triggered)
Even after installing libsensors-dev, make fails immediately:
textCDPATH="${ZSH_VERSION+.}:" && cd . && /bin/sh /home/.../missing aclocal-1.15
/home/.../missing: 81: aclocal-1.15: command not found
WARNING: 'aclocal-1.15' is missing on your system.
make: *** [Makefile:456: aclocal.m4] Error 127

Root cause
The git checkout still contains maintainer-mode rules that attempt to regenerate autotools files (aclocal.m4, Makefile.in, etc.) using the exact version the original maintainer used (Automake 1.15).
Ubuntu 24.04 ships Automake 1.16 — there is no aclocal-1.15 binary.
Timestamps or a fresh git clone can trigger this regeneration even though the files already exist.
Solutions (in order of preference)
Best / cleanest — re-bootstrap the build system with current tools:

sudo apt install autoconf automake libtool
autoreconf --force --install
./configure
make
sudo make install

This regenerates aclocal.m4, configure, Makefile.in etc. using Automake 1.16 → no more aclocal-1.15 calls.
Quick workaround (if you don’t want to re-bootstrap):

touch aclocal.m4
make
sudo make install

This tricks make into thinking aclocal.m4 is up-to-date and skips regeneration.
Even quicker hack (dirty but works):

sudo ln -s /usr/bin/aclocal /usr/bin/aclocal-1.15
make
sudo make install

(then remove the symlink afterward)

Summary – Minimal working build sequence on Ubuntu 24.04

sudo apt update
sudo apt install build-essential libsensors-dev autoconf automake libtool

git clone https://github.com/chinf/psensor.git
cd psensor

autoreconf --force --install
./configure
make
sudo make install

After this, psensor should build and run (though optional features may still be missing if other dev libs are not installed).

Suggestion for project

Ship release tarballs again (they freeze generated files and disable maintainer-mode regeneration)
Or add autoreconf -fi to README as the recommended way to prepare a git checkout
Or document that users on modern distros should run autoreconf --force --install before ./configure

Thanks for maintaining psensor — even a simple README update would save many people from falling into these classic autotools traps.

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PS. Sorry for pasting over Grok AI's summary of my struggles, I hope these help smb