diff --git a/README b/README
index 404177cc..eb1bd425 100644
--- a/README
+++ b/README
@@ -33,3 +33,10 @@ GNU Lesser General Public License for more details.
 
 You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public License
 along with Fuego.  If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
+
+Compilation
+===========
+
+See INSTALL for generic compilation instructions from GNU Automake.
+The file doc/general/pages/autotools.cpp contains additional and Fuego
+specific documentation.
diff --git a/doc/general/pages/autotools.cpp b/doc/general/pages/autotools.cpp
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..07efb2e0
--- /dev/null
+++ b/doc/general/pages/autotools.cpp
@@ -0,0 +1,42 @@
+/** @page generalautotools Building Fuego using GNU Autotools
+
+@section generalautotoolsdistro Building a distribution (released version)
+
+@verbatim
+./configure
+make
+@endverbatim
+
+@section generalautotoolssvn Building a development version checked out from SVN
+
+@verbatim
+aclocal
+autoheader
+automake --add-missing
+autoreconf
+automake --add-missing
+@endverbatim
+
+The above commands need to be run only initially. Then the compilation works
+as in the previous section.
+
+After adding or removing files or doing other changes to
+<tt>configure.in</tt> or a <tt>Makefile.am</tt>, you need to run
+<tt>autoreconf</tt> again bevor doing a make.
+A better way is to configure your makefiles with
+<tt>./configure --enable-maintainer-mode</tt>. Then a make will automatically
+check, if <tt>configure.in</tt> or a <tt>Makefile.am</tt> have changed and
+recreate the makefiles bevor the compilation if necessary.
+
+Other interesting options to configure are @c --enable-assert for enabling
+assertions or @c --enable-optimize=no for switching off optimizations.
+<tt>./configure --help</tt> returns a full list of options.
+
+@section generalautotoolsinstall Installing Fuego
+
+@verbatim
+sudo make install
+@endverbatim
+
+*/
+
diff --git a/doc/general/pages/mainpage.cpp b/doc/general/pages/mainpage.cpp
index c58945ef..cdb36425 100644
--- a/doc/general/pages/mainpage.cpp
+++ b/doc/general/pages/mainpage.cpp
@@ -6,4 +6,5 @@
 
     - @ref generalstyle
     - @ref generalgmake
+    - @ref generalautotools
 */