glibc irritations

[Bernd Prager]

Hi everybody,
I'm having troubles with compiling cups-1.1.18 on RedHat 8.1
which kernel 2.4.20 and gcc 3.2.2 and I hope I'm not to much OT since
the problem seems to be related to glibc.
But I found only one glibc-related mailing list which is completely
spammed. So I hope to find help in this group.

I get the error messages:
...
Making all in backend...
Compiling betest.c...
Linking betest...
/lib/libc.so.6: undefined reference to
`_dl_lookup_versioned_symbol_skip@GLIBC_PRIVATE'
/lib/libc.so.6: undefined reference to `_rtld_global@GLIBC_PRIVATE'
/lib/libc.so.6: undefined reference to
`_dl_lookup_versioned_symbol@GLIBC_PRIVATE'
/lib/libc.so.6: undefined reference to `_dl_start_profile@GLIBC_PRIVATE'
/lib/libc.so.6: undefined reference to
`_dl_check_map_versions@GLIBC_PRIVATE'
/lib/libc.so.6: undefined reference to `__libc_enable_secure@GLIBC_PRIVATE'
/lib/libc.so.6: undefined reference to `_dl_get_origin@GLIBC_PRIVATE'
/lib/libc.so.6: undefined reference to `_dl_dst_substitute@GLIBC_PRIVATE'
/lib/libc.so.6: undefined reference to `_dl_debug_state@GLIBC_PRIVATE
...

I found some references on the web where other guys seem to be the same
difficulties
but without a real solutions. The basic advice is "reinstall your system"
what would
be kind of rough for me.
I did some research on my system and encountered that I have several links
to libc:

 /lib/libc.so.6 -> libc-2.2.93.so
 /usr/lib/i686/libc.so.6 -> libc-2.2.93.so
 /usr/lib/libc.so.6 -> libc-2.2.4.so
 /var/ftp/lib/libc.so.6 -> libc-2.2.93.so

and for whatever reasons one of them point to an older libc version.

I tried to correct that by doing a 'ln -sf /lib/libc-2.2.93.so
/usr/lib/libc.so.6'
and that seems to work but after an 'ldconfig' the link point back to the
old
version.

Now I'm too scared to temper to much with my glibc. I did ones crash my
entire
system by deleting a libc version.

Now I have basically two question:

A) Is it possible or likely that this link causes my compiler/linker
failures.
B) How do I correct that without jeopardizing my entire system.

Thanks a lot for any help,
-- Bernd

--
"Everything that can be invented has been invented. "
  - Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents, 1899