diff --git a/configure.ac b/configure.ac
index be1657855a..b91706d8c2 100644
--- a/configure.ac
+++ b/configure.ac
@@ -144,6 +144,11 @@ AC_SUBST(AIKSAURUS_LIBS)
 LYX_USE_INCLUDED_BOOST
 
 ### Setup libtool
+dnl Dirty trick ahead: disable libtool checking for a fortran compiler
+dnl see http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.comp.gnu.libtool.general/6699
+dnl Note that this will reportedly not be needed with libtool 2.0
+m4_undefine([AC_PROG_F77])
+m4_defun([AC_PROG_F77],[])
 AC_DISABLE_SHARED
 AC_LIBTOOL_WIN32_DLL
 #AM_PROG_LIBTOOL
@@ -234,6 +239,12 @@ if echo $prefix |grep ' ' >/dev/null 2>/dev/null ; then
   prefix=`pwd`/installprefix
 fi
 
+### We need iconv for unicode support
+AM_ICONV
+if test "$am_cv_func_iconv" = no; then
+  LYX_ERROR([Cannot find required library iconv])
+fi
+
 ### Setup GNU gettext
 dnl GNU gettext is written in C
 AC_LANG_PUSH(C)