diff --git a/configure.ac b/configure.ac
index 20ebc16..e02c57d 100644
--- a/configure.ac
+++ b/configure.ac
@@ -7,7 +7,7 @@ AC_CONFIG_SRCDIR(src/normalize.c)
 AC_CONFIG_AUX_DIR(config)
 AC_CONFIG_FILES(config/Makefile)
 
-AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE
+AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE([subdir-objects foreign])
 AC_CONFIG_HEADERS(config.h)
 
 AC_CANONICAL_HOST
@@ -15,6 +15,7 @@ AC_PROG_CC
 AC_ISC_POSIX
 AC_PROG_INSTALL
 AC_PROG_LN_S
+AC_PROG_MKDIR_P
 
 AC_DOSFILE
 
@@ -304,6 +305,7 @@ AC_ARG_ENABLE(longer-name,
 AC_SUBST(NORMALIZE_BIN)
 
 AM_GNU_GETTEXT([external])
+AM_GNU_GETTEXT_REQUIRE_VERSION([0.21])
 
 AC_CONFIG_FILES(src/normalize-mp3, [chmod +x src/normalize-mp3])
 dnl AC_CONFIG_FILES(packaging/normalize.spec packaging/normalize.list)