Getting error using Shell rule after upgrading to Ubuntu 12.04

[ccervo@…]

I was happily doing development using bjam under the previous Ubuntu LTS release. I using package manager to upgrade to the 12.04 LTS release. Now my Jamfiles no longer work. example:

SHELL "mkdir -vp $(SOLUTION_ROOT)/log $(SOLUTION_ROOT)/conf" ;

used to work just fine. Now I get an error

"* argument error

• rule SHELL ( command : * )
• called with: ( )
• missing argument command"

I'm guessing that the previous bjam parsed the quote characters differently. I've tried various quoting schemes but can't get it to work. Any ideas/

[Steven Watanabe]

SOLUTION_ROOT is empty.