building Python: up arrow broken on SuSE Linux 8.2

[Erik Johnson]

    I am trying to upgrade my Python installation. After downloading
sources and building Python 2.3.4, I am unable to use the command
history editing feature in the interactive interpreter (where the
up-arrow would previously give you the last command line to edit,
it now just prints "^[[A".) This is a feature I use often, and it
kinda nullifies that warm fuzzy feeling you get when things are
otherwise working as expected.

    Python 2.2.2 was installed via YaST (standard SuSE distribution)
and works fine. Unfortunately, several modules I need are not part
of that installation and there doesn't seem to be a newer installation
via that route (that I know of). I downloaded source and built
Python 2.3.4 in my local directory. There were a lot of warnings like this:

Objects/intobject.c:1125: warning: comparison between signed and unsigned
Objects/intobject.c:1135: warning: comparison between signed and unsigned

    I don't know exactly what "normal" output is, but things seem to
have gone pretty well, as this is the output after 'make test':

... <snip>
test_zlib
226 tests OK.
29 tests skipped:
    test_aepack test_al test_bsddb test_bsddb185 test_bsddb3 test_cd
    test_cl test_curses test_dbm test_email_codecs test_gdbm test_gl
    test_imgfile test_linuxaudiodev test_macfs test_macostools
    test_nis test_normalization test_ossaudiodev test_pep277
    test_plistlib test_scriptpackages test_socket_ssl
    test_socketserver test_sunaudiodev test_timeout test_urllibnet
    test_winreg test_winsound
3 skips unexpected on linux2:
    test_dbm test_gdbm test_bsddb

(I'm not doing anything with DBM stuff, so I don't think I care about
the three skipped tests.)

    I thought the problem may have had something to do with the
curses module, which is apparently not enabled by default. In the
Modules/Setup file, I changed this:

# First, look at Setup.config; configure may have set this for you.
#_curses _cursesmodule.c -lcurses -ltermcap
# Wrapper for the panel library that's part of ncurses and SYSV curses.
#_curses_panel _curses_panel.c -lpanel -lncurses

to this (my system has /usr/lib/libncurses.so.5.3):

# First, look at Setup.config; configure may have set this for you.
#_curses _cursesmodule.c -lcurses -ltermcap
_curses _cursesmodule.c -lncurses
# Wrapper for the panel library that's part of ncurses and SYSV curses.
#_curses_panel _curses_panel.c -lpanel -lncurses


    I got a clean compile and the test_curses.py file executes silently:

sand:~/Python-2.3.4/Lib/test> ../../python ./test_curses.py
sand:~/Python-2.3.4/Lib/test>

Unfortunately, that didn't solve the problem.
Has anyone else seen this problem?
Or, more importantly, can someone tell me how to fix this?

Thanks for taking the time to read my post.

-ej