Installing apache modules never made much sense to me. I’ve done it a few times without fanfare and yet every time I’m faced with some new module, it’s like starting from scratch.

I needed the WebDAV module mod_dav installed because I’m setting up a Subversion code repository, and a full server install of Subversion requires apache with WebDAV.

Gcc, Apache, Subversion, and the apache headers which mod_dav needs installed in moments without incident. But mod_dav won’t build. Why not? The holy trinity of ./configure; make; make install only makes the pre-compiler whine that your apxs is broken, with a helpful pointer to the mod_dav install page. Finding the broken apxs problem results in a reference to a PHP FAQ (ironically in chapter 69)

Apache modules use a script called apxs to configure themselves and get the linking paths right to be able to link dynamically into a precompiled apache install.

It seems like using many common linux distros ship with broken apxs scripts (ubuntu, red hat). That means your apache modules will whine at you and fail to install. Hot.

Is there some way around this? OS X could be considered a “distribution”, I guess — it’s a pre-built unix install — and it has a working apxs script with apache. Why can’t Linux get this right?