diff --git a/configure.ac b/configure.ac
index 0b0e7876fc1..7f11eead027 100644
--- a/configure.ac
+++ b/configure.ac
@@ -94,7 +94,8 @@ dnl Prepare a version of $localstatedir & co. that does not contain references
 dnl to shell variables.  Also set some sane default directory variables for
 dnl use with the Guix.  This also causes localstatedir to be /var and
 dnl sysconfdir to be /etc.
-test "$prefix" = NONE && prefix=
+AC_PREFIX_DEFAULT()
+guix_prefix="`eval echo $prefix | sed -e"s|NONE|$ac_default_prefix|g"`"
 guix_localstatedir="`eval echo $localstatedir | sed -e "s|NONE|$guix_prefix|g"`"
 guix_sysconfdir="`eval echo $sysconfdir | sed -e "s|NONE|$guix_prefix|g"`"
 guix_sbindir="`eval echo $sbindir | sed -e "s|NONE|$guix_prefix|g"`"