This turns out to be because a local test in configure.ac used hard-coded 'pkg-config' instead of $PKG_CONFIG which autoconf has set to the correct path (/usr/bin/<triplet>-pkg-config)
(This patch is not sufficient to cross-build this package which has other issues).
consolekit can't find dbus-1 when cross-building:
From the build log: http:// people. linaro. org/~wookey/ buildd/ precise/ sbuild- ma/consolekit_ 0.4.5-2- precise- ma-cross- armel-20120417- 025041. 38177.log
Package dbus-1 was not found in the pkg-config search path.
Perhaps you should add the directory containing `dbus-1.pc'
to the PKG_CONFIG_PATH environment variable
No package 'dbus-1' found
Error: Couldn't determine the version of your DBUS package.
This turns out to be because a local test in configure.ac used hard-coded 'pkg-config' instead of $PKG_CONFIG which autoconf has set to the correct path (/usr/bin/ <triplet> -pkg-config)
(This patch is not sufficient to cross-build this package which has other issues).