OK, perhaps I understand now what is going on:
* because we deal with cmake, we need favor preconfigopts - as opposed to configopts.
```
#preconfigopts = 'CC=$EBROOTGCC/bin/gcc '
preconfigopts = 'CC=/opt/apps/HPCBIOS.20130301/software/GCC/4.7.2/bin/gcc '
```
That again, does not get expanded at run-time - ie. $EBROOTGCC is not available;
there must be a way around this, the only question is, which is the "good" way.