diff --git a/ChangeLog b/ChangeLog
index 8989f92423..2261c7d2e7 100644
--- a/ChangeLog
+++ b/ChangeLog
@@ -1,3 +1,15 @@
+2004-03-04  Sven Neumann  <sven@gimp.org>
+
+	* autogen.sh: follow the changes done for other modules such as
+	glib, pango and gtk+:
+
+	- exit with $? instead of 1 in case of failure
+	- exit with $? if ./configure failed
+	- removed --enable-gtk-doc option
+	- added $AUTOGEN_CONFIGURE_ARGS
+
+	* HACKING: document the new behaviour.
+
 2004-03-04  Michael Natterer  <mitch@gimp.org>
 
 	* app/config/gimpcoreconfig.[ch]
diff --git a/HACKING b/HACKING
index 6b482a6e06..0d4c828dd9 100644
--- a/HACKING
+++ b/HACKING
@@ -7,7 +7,7 @@ to have the following packages (or newer versions) installed:
         - ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/autoconf/
     * GNU automake 1.7  (1.8 and 1.6 will also work)
         - ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/automake/
-    * GNU libtool 1.3.4  (1.5.0 if you are compiling on Win32)
+    * GNU libtool 1.4  (1.5 if you are compiling on Win32)
         - ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/libtool/
 
 Fine GNU mirrors are listed at http://www.gnu.org/prep/ftp.html
@@ -51,12 +51,11 @@ Note that autogen.sh runs configure for you.  If you wish to pass
 options like --prefix=/usr to configure you can give those options to
 autogen.sh and they will be passed on to configure.
 
-autogen.sh by default passes --enable-gtk-doc to configure in order to
-enable the creation of the GIMP API reference manuals in the devel-docs
-directory. You will need a recent version of gtk-doc as well as a
-working setup for handling DocBook XML. If you run into any problems
-here, you can disable creation of the docs by passing --disable-gtk-doc
-to autogen.sh.
+If AUTOGEN_CONFIGURE_ARGS is set, these options will also be passed to
+the configure script. If for example you want to enable the build of
+the GIMP API reference manuals, you can set AUTOGEN_CONFIGURE_ARGS to
+"--enable-gtk-doc". Please note that you will then need a recent
+version of gtk-doc as well as a working setup for handling DocBook/XML.
 
 
 CVS
diff --git a/autogen.sh b/autogen.sh
index b4149d1a34..8c52e33948 100755
--- a/autogen.sh
+++ b/autogen.sh
@@ -180,28 +180,29 @@ $ACLOCAL $ACLOCAL_FLAGS
 RC=$?
 if test $RC -ne 0; then
    echo "$ACLOCAL gave errors. Please fix the error conditions and try again."
-   exit 1
+   exit $RC
 fi
 
-libtoolize --force || exit 1
+libtoolize --force || exit $?
 
 # optionally feature autoheader
 (autoheader --version)  < /dev/null > /dev/null 2>&1 && autoheader || exit 1
 
-$AUTOMAKE --add-missing || exit 1
-autoconf || exit 1
+$AUTOMAKE --add-missing || exit $?
+autoconf || exit $?
 
-glib-gettextize --copy --force || exit 1
-intltoolize --copy --force --automake || exit 1
+glib-gettextize --copy --force || exit $?
+intltoolize --copy --force --automake || exit $?
 
 cd $ORIGDIR
 
-if $srcdir/configure --enable-maintainer-mode --enable-gtk-doc "$@"; then
-  echo
-  echo "Now type 'make' to compile $PROJECT."
-else
+$srcdir/configure --enable-maintainer-mode $AUTOGEN_CONFIGURE_ARGS "$@"
+RC=$?
+if test $RC -ne 0; then
   echo
   echo "Configure failed or did not finish!"
-  exit 1
+  exit $RC
 fi
 
+echo
+echo "Now type 'make' to compile $PROJECT."