Howto prevent LDFLAGS --sort-common,--as-needed,<snip>,--hash-style=gnu

All, This is a follow up from an issue Jay and I are trying to solve with twin-style-crystal. I have also posted this to the Arch list in case it is gcc version related, but someone smarter than I on autotools may see the problem from what is described below. I have patched acinclude.m4, aclocal.m4 and configure to remove references to --as-needed, but when I run configure, I still get the three unwanted LDFLAGS put back in the makefile somehow? Example: Makefile:LDFLAGS = -Wl,-O1,--sort-common,--as-needed,-z,relro,--hash-style=gnu I just want it to read: Makefile:LDFLAGS = -Wl,-O1,-z,relro What magic autotool does this and how do I fix it? The flags show up in the Makefiles and the config.status file. I have completely searched the source code with grep -r and after patching none of the unwanted flags are present before starting the build. When the build craters, I check the Makefiles and config.status and the unwanted flags are back. This results in the build failing with: /bin/sh ../libtool --silent --mode=link --tag=CXX g++ -march=x86-64 -mtune=generic -O2 -pipe -fstack-protector --param=ssp-buffer-size=4 -D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2 -Wl,-O1,--sort-common,--as-needed,-z,relro,--hash-style=gnu -o embedtool -L/opt/trinity/lib -L/opt/qt3/lib -L/opt/trinity/lib/trinity embedtool.o -lqt-mt -lz -lpng -lz -lm -lXext -lX11 -lSM -lICE -lpthread g++: error: unrecognized option '--sort-common' g++: error: unrecognized option '--as-needed' g++: error: unrecognized option '--hash-style=gnu' What's the trick? Thanks. Extra info: For those interested, the source is: http://www.kde-look.org/content/show.php?content=13969 and the patch I'm applying to try and get rid of the flags is: http://www.3111skyline.com/dl/dt/trinity/arch/src/crystal-1.patch -- David C. Rankin, J.D.,P.E.