I'm trying to install some software by compiling it in situ on my N800. (The software in question is actually the R statistics package, but that's not directly relevant for this query.) The installation procedure is standard for linux:
./configure
make
make install etc...

However, the configure step fails: the error message says that a version of grep is needed that "handles long lines and -e".

Not to be deterred, I downloaded the source code for gnu grep from here:
http://directory.fsf.org/project/grep/
The plan was to compile this version, and then use my new grep to then install the R software. Unfortunately, when I tried to build this version of grep I got the same error: ie. in order to build grep from source, I need a version of grep that handles long lines etc... Catch 22!

Any suggestions would be gratefully received. Apologies that this problem has as much to do with gnu / grep as it does to the N800 platform.

Hemlock