The ./configure script will analyze your environment and create custom Makefiles particular to your system. Aside from all the standard autoconf stuff, ./configure does the following:
You can manually specify the location of apxs by using the --with-apxs option, e.g.:
$ ./configure --with-apxs=/usr/local/apache/bin/apxs
It is recommended that you specify this option.
If the first Python binary in the path is not suitable or not the one desired for mod_python, you can specify an alternative location with the --with-python option, e.g:
$ ./configure --with-python=/usr/local/bin/python2.3
The mutexes used for locking are a limited resource on some systems. Increasing the maximum number of locks may increase performance when using session locking. The default is 8. A reasonable number for higher performance would be 32. Use --with-max-locks option, e.g:
$ ./configure --with-max-locks=32
New in version 3.2.0
The parser used by psp (See 4.9) is written in C generated using flex. This requires a reentrant version of flex which at this time is 2.5.31. Most platforms however ship with version 2.5.4 which is not suitable, so a pre-generated copy of psp_parser.c is included with the source. If you do need to compile src/psp_parser.c you must get the correct flex version.
If the first flex binary in the path is not suitable or not the one desired you can specify an alternative location with the --with-flex option, e.g:
$ ./configure --with-flex=/usr/local/bin/flex
New in version 3.2.0
You can safely ignore this option unless you want to build the the documentation. If you want to build the documentation, specify the path to your python source with the --with-python-src option, eg.
$ ./configure --with-python-src=/usr/src/python2.3
New in version 3.2.0