[Newbie] Missing LF macros and other scripts

[Al]

Ive been trying to learn to use autoconf, automake etc. using the book
``Learning the GNU development tools''
(http://wso.williams.edu/how/info/autoconf/tutorial_toc.html) (and others).
In this book there are references to a number of scripts and macros that
dont seem to be distributed with Cygwin (yes Im a pseudo-unix user...). For
that matter, Ive had a hard time finding any references to them on the web,
despite getting the impression from said book that they are standard. These
include;

* acmkdir (to contruct skeleton package structures and files)

* gpl (to create files of various types containing the appropriate GPL
statements)

* macros such as LF_CONGIGURE_CC and LF_CONGIGURE_CXX, about which the
authors say,

``... the following macros that are distributed with Autotools, and made
accessible through the `aclocal' utility. All of them are prefixed with `LF'
to distinguish them from the standard macros:

LF_CONFIGURE_CC
This macro is equivalent to the following invokation:

AC_PROG_CC
AC_PROG_CPP
AC_AIX
AC_ISC_POSIX
AC_MINIX
AC_HEADER_STDC

which is a traditional Autoconf idiom for setting up the C compiler.

LF_CONFIGURE_CXX
This macro calls

AC_PROG_CXX
AC_PROG_CXXCPP

and then invokes the portability macro:

LF_CPP_PORTABILITY

This is the recommended way for configuring your C++ compiler.''

Getting to the point, where are these things?! Theyre not in my up-to-date
Cygwin and I have found very very few references to them on the web. The
best Ive come across is an implementation of Autotools at
http://cvs.nekhem.com/cgi-bin/cvsweb/autotools/#dirlist. Ive had limited
success using a files I downloaded from there (gotten acmkdir and gpl to
pretty much work but the .m4s that define the LF macros chuck out errors
when they get to using LF_CPP_PORTABILITY).

Its driving me mad! Are the things Ive listed above standard or what?
Patience with and recommendations to a learner?

Thanks
A