so I would prefer a call to make like make libdir=/usr/lib bindir=/usr/bin datadir=/usr/share/data arch={32,64,ppc,...} verbose={1,0}
An optin to the makefile to make it verbose, this can often safe time to find out whats going wrong (missing includes, wrong libs linked etc) and add a option for 64bit build (==> results in BITS=xx entry in defines)