This is incorrect on IRIX, which keeps some old libraries around just for the sake of backward compatibility with very old programs. To prevent this from happening, simply force GNU configure to explicitly ignore ' libsocket ', ' libnsl ', ' libgen ' and ' libsun '. Note that this is just an example. Some open source programs assume GNU make in their Makefiles. You should probably use GNU make on IRIX too.
Compatibility is good.
With GNU make supporting parallel makes there's really no reason to use any IRIX specific make like smake , pmake , or make . This is a historical BSD thing that should have been done transparently by the linker. If your Makefile calls ranlib either delete this or define it to a no-op. Mixing signal models may cause unpredictable problems. The SGI cc is verbose and pedantic.