diff --git a/m4/check-checks.m4 b/m4/check-checks.m4
--- /dev/null
+++ b/m4/check-checks.m4
@@ -0,0 +1,40 @@
+dnl Check for things that check needs/wants and that we don't check for already
+dnl AM_GST_CHECK_CHECKS()
+
+AC_DEFUN([AG_GST_CHECK_CHECKS],
+[
+AC_MSG_NOTICE([Running check unit test framework checks now...])
+
+CHECK_MAJOR_VERSION=0
+CHECK_MINOR_VERSION=9
+CHECK_MICRO_VERSION=8
+CHECK_VERSION=$CHECK_MAJOR_VERSION.$CHECK_MINOR_VERSION.$CHECK_MICRO_VERSION
+
+AC_SUBST(CHECK_MAJOR_VERSION)
+AC_SUBST(CHECK_MINOR_VERSION)
+AC_SUBST(CHECK_MICRO_VERSION)
+AC_SUBST(CHECK_VERSION)
+
+dnl Checks for header files and declarations
+AC_CHECK_HEADERS([unistd.h sys/wait.h sys/time.h])
+
+AC_CHECK_FUNCS([localtime_r])
+
+
+dnl Create _stdint.h in the top-level directory
+AX_CREATE_STDINT_H
+
+dnl Disable subunit support for the time being
+enable_subunit=false
+
+if test xfalse = x"$enable_subunit"; then
+ENABLE_SUBUNIT="0"
+else
+ENABLE_SUBUNIT="1"
+fi
+AC_SUBST(ENABLE_SUBUNIT)
+AC_DEFINE_UNQUOTED(ENABLE_SUBUNIT, $ENABLE_SUBUNIT, [Subunit protocol result output])
+
+AM_CONDITIONAL(SUBUNIT, test x"$enable_subunit" != "xfalse")
+
+])