Problems building zlib module on RHEL

[mhearne808[insert-at-sign-here]gmail[insert-dot-here]com]

On Mar 18, 8:42 am, "mhearne808[insert-at-sign-here]gmail[insert-dot-
here]com" <mhearne... at gmail.com> wrote:
> I can't seem to get the zlib module to build on an RHEL box.
>
> I did the following:
> 1) Download zlib 1.2.3
> 2) configure;make;make install
> 3) Download python 2.5.2
> 4) configure;make;make install
> 5) >>> import zlib => "ImportError: No module named zlib"
>
> In the make install step for python, I notice there are the following
> errors:
>
> building 'zlib' extension
> gcc -pthread -shared build/temp.linux-x86_64-2.5/home/shake/python/
> Python-2.5.2/Modules/zlibmodule.o -L/usr/local/lib -lz -o build/
> lib.linux-x86_64-2.5/zlib.so
> /usr/bin/ld: /usr/local/lib/libz.a(crc32.o): relocation R_X86_64_32
> against `a local symbol' can not be used when making a shared object;
> recompile with -fPIC
> /usr/local/lib/libz.a: could not read symbols: Bad value
> collect2: ld returned 1 exit status
>
> Does anyone have any hints on how to get around this?
>
> system info:
> kernel : 2.6.9-67.0.1.ELsmp
> gcc : 3.4.6
>
> Thanks,
>
> Mike

I figured it out, although it wasn't obvious... You have to compile
zlib as a shared library by running "configure -s".