> As a workaround, I have done the following:
> 
>    cp /usr/share/aclocal/libtool.m4 ./admin
>    cp /usr/share/aclocal/libtool.m4 ./admin/libtool.m4.in
>    cp /usr/share/libtool/config/ltmain.sh ./admin
> 
> That solves the issue with tdeutils

That is exactly what the wiki says to do.

http://www.trinitydesktop.org/wiki/bin/view/Developers/HowToBuild

3. Building with autoconf
...
Regenerate Autoconf/Automake files

Perhaps you thought you had been doing this all along but now discover that you haven't? (Been there, done that!) :)

Darrell