configure does not work

[tomdupes]

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

[RedDiamond]

Try  

Code:

./autogen.sh
./configure
make

[zvs]

Try  

Code:

./autogen.sh
./configure
make

yeah, oops, had something else posted, but it's def the ./configure.ac .. not the file you want to run