Below you can find all the information that I can think of which is revelent to this question. The question is: how do I get my system configured to compile xemacs. I've been doing this for months without putting in any extra effort, and on a few different machines. Perhaps I simply neglected to include something when I installed 7.1. I suspect the problem is not that simple. Any assistance woud be appreciated. I suspect the best clue is in the tail config.log. In particular this line: /usr/i486-suse-linux/bin/ld: cannot find -ltermcap TIA, Steve I get this when trying to ./configure xemacs on 7.1: ******************** ERRORS ***************************** checking if the linker is GNU ld... yes Defining HAVE_SHLIB xemacs will be linked with "sysdll.o emodules.o" Appending "src" to $INSTALL_ARCH_DEP_SUBDIR checking for dlerror... no checking for _dlerror... no *** PANIC *** The C compiler can no longer build working executables. *** PANIC *** Please examine the tail of config.log for runtime errors. *** PANIC *** The most likely reason for this problem is that configure *** PANIC *** links with shared libraries, but those libraries cannot be *** PANIC *** found at run time. *** PANIC *** *** PANIC *** On a Linux system, edit /etc/ld.so.conf and re-run ldconfig. *** PANIC *** On other systems, try telling configure where to find the *** PANIC *** shared libraries using the --site-runtime-libraries option *** PANIC *** *** PANIC *** Another way to shoot yourself in the foot is to specify *** PANIC *** --with-FEATURE when FEATURE is not actually installed *** PANIC *** on your system. Don't do that. nariana:/download/xemacs/xemacs-21.2 # ************** Tail config.log ******************** nariana:/download/xemacs/xemacs-21.2 # tail config.log #endif ; return 0; } configure:14455: gcc -o conftest -g -O3 -Wall -Wno-switch -Winline -Wmissing-prototypes -Wshadow -I/usr/X11/include -L/usr/X11/lib conftest.c -lXmu -lXt -lXext -lX11 -lSM -lICE -ltermcap -lcurses -lm -lshell32 -lgdi32 -luser32 -lcomdlg32 -lcomctl32 -lwinspool -lgcc -lc -lgcc /usr/lib/crtn.o 1>&5 /usr/i486-suse-linux/bin/ld: cannot find -ltermcap collect2: ld returned 1 exit status configure: failed program was: #line 14451 "configure" #include "confdefs.h" int main(int c,char *v[]){return 0;} nariana:/download/xemacs/xemacs-21.2 # ************* Locate Termcap ************************* nariana:/download/xemacs/xemacs-21.2 # locate termcap /etc/termcap /opt/download/nariana/etc/termcap /opt/download/nariana/etc/termcap.rpmsave /opt/download/xemacs/xemacs-21.2/man/termcap.texi /opt/download/xemacs/xemacs-21.2/src/termcap.c /opt/kde2/share/doc/HTML/de/konsole/fehlerintermcap.html /usr/include/termcap /usr/include/termcap.h /usr/include/termcap/termcap.h /usr/lib/bcc/include/termcap.h /usr/lib/libtermcap.so.2 /usr/lib/libtermcap.so.2.0.8 /usr/lib/perl5/5.6.0/termcap.pl /usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.0/i586-linux/termcap.ph /usr/lib/termcap /usr/lib/termcap/libtermcap.a /usr/lib/termcap/libtermcap.so /usr/lib/zsh/3.1.9/zsh/termcap.so /usr/share/doc/packages/aterm/etc/rxvt.termcap /usr/share/doc/packages/wterm/etc/wterm.termcap /usr/share/emacs/20.7/etc/termcap.src /usr/share/man/allman/man3/termcap.3ncurses.gz /usr/share/man/allman/man5/termcap.5.gz /usr/share/man/man3/termcap.3ncurses.gz /usr/share/man/man5/termcap.5.gz /usr/share/misc/termcap /usr/share/zsh/help/termcap /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/etc/sun.termcap /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/etc/xterm.termcap nariana:/download/xemacs/xemacs-21.2 # ************** cat /etc/ld.so.conf *************************** nariana:/download/xemacs/xemacs-21.2 # cat /etc/ld.so.conf /lib-aout /usr/X11R6/lib/Xaw95 /usr/X11R6/lib/Xaw3d /usr/X11R6/lib /usr/i486-linux/lib /usr/i486-linux-libc5/lib=libc5 /usr/i486-linux-libc6/lib=libc6 /usr/i486-linuxaout/lib /usr/i386-suse-linux/lib /usr/local/lib /usr/openwin/lib /opt/kde/lib /opt/kde2/lib /opt/gnome/lib nariana:/download/xemacs/xemacs-21.2 #