Comment 6 for bug 1299041

That's why "apt-get build-dep grub" matters. Grub (not grub2) has a "Build-Depends: debhelper (>= 4.0.0), automake1.9". Thus, automake1.9 gets installed. "Grub2" doesn't even have a build-depend on automake - there might be a lower dependency on automake but I did not check that. So it's not a system from 2005, it's just that I typed "apt-get build-dep grub" - as stated above.

The bottom line is: the build-dependencies of grub2 (which is in beta) aren't fully up to date, and my list might be of help.