I am new to bitcoin development and am trying to configure and make the source code. however I get this error  (I am on linux mint) whenever i do ./configure.ac :
    ./configure.ac: line 1: syntax error near unexpected token `('
    ./configure.ac: line 1: `dnl require autoconf 2.60 (AS_ECHO/AS_ECHO_N)'
what is the problem? If anyone can help me that would be great