diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore
index 7b954d587..e10377702 100644
--- a/.gitignore
+++ b/.gitignore
@@ -135,4 +135,10 @@ git-core.spec
 *.[ao]
 *.py[co]
 config.mak
+autom4te.cache
+config.log
+config.status
+config.mak.in
+config.mak.autogen
+configure
 git-blame
diff --git a/INSTALL b/INSTALL
index f8337e2a4..28245b3e6 100644
--- a/INSTALL
+++ b/INSTALL
@@ -13,6 +13,15 @@ that uses $prefix, the built results have some paths encoded,
 which are derived from $prefix, so "make all; make prefix=/usr
 install" would not work.
 
+Alternatively you can use autoconf generated ./configure script to
+set up install paths (via config.mak.autogen), so you can write instead
+
+	$ autoconf ;# as yourself if ./configure doesn't exist yet
+	$ ./configure --prefix=/usr ;# as yourself
+	$ make all doc ;# as yourself
+	# make install install-doc ;# as root
+
+
 Issues of note:
 
  - git normally installs a helper script wrapper called "git", which
diff --git a/Makefile b/Makefile
index ccd7c62e5..a37d40059 100644
--- a/Makefile
+++ b/Makefile
@@ -333,6 +333,7 @@ ifneq (,$(findstring arm,$(uname_M)))
 	ARM_SHA1 = YesPlease
 endif
 
+-include config.mak.autogen
 -include config.mak
 
 ifdef WITH_OWN_SUBPROCESS_PY
diff --git a/config.mak.in b/config.mak.in
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..82c9781f0
--- /dev/null
+++ b/config.mak.in
@@ -0,0 +1,18 @@
+# git Makefile configuration, included in main Makefile
+# @configure_input@
+
+prefix = @prefix@
+exec_prefix = @exec_prefix@
+bindir = @bindir@
+#gitexecdir = @libexecdir@/git-core/
+template_dir = @datadir@/git-core/templates/
+GIT_PYTHON_DIR = @datadir@/git-core/python
+
+mandir=@mandir@
+
+srcdir = @srcdir@
+VPATH = @srcdir@
+
+export exec_prefix mandir
+export srcdir VPATH
+
diff --git a/configure.ac b/configure.ac
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..a0374d4d5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/configure.ac
@@ -0,0 +1,14 @@
+#                                               -*- Autoconf -*-
+# Process this file with autoconf to produce a configure script.
+
+AC_PREREQ(2.59)
+AC_INIT([git], [1.4.1], [git@vger.kernel.org])
+
+AC_CONFIG_SRCDIR([git.c])
+
+config_file=config.mak.autogen
+config_in=config.mak.in
+
+# Output files
+AC_CONFIG_FILES(["${config_file}":"${config_in}"])
+AC_OUTPUT