On 9 Jul 2012, David C. Rankin outgrape:
> [ 49%] Generating nfs_prot_xdr.c
> cannot find any C preprocessor (cpp)
> rpcgen: C preprocessor failed with exit code 1

OK. This is glibc's rpcgen that's failing. It specifically searches for
/lib/cpp, then for /usr/ccs/lib/cpp (I kid you not) then fails if it
can't find either of them. It would be interesting to see an strace
of your rpcgen, to see what it's searching for...

I note that in glibc 2.14 and 2.15, the RPC calls were made unusable by
newly-linked programs, and rpcgen was removed. Because no replacement
was ready, this broke compilation of every RPC user out there, so most
distros patched it back in. I suspect arch's patching back in failed.

In glibc 2.16, RPC is back upstream again (until such time as libtirpc
is *really* ready to replace it), if glibc is configured with
--enable-obsolete-rpc, which absolutely every non-embedded distro will
be doing. Which explains why it works with glibc 2.16.

-- 
NULL && (void)