make[1]: Entering directory `/usr/src/BUILD/gdb-4.17/readline' gcc -c -O2 -g -D_POSIX_VERSION -I. -I./../ -DVOID_SIGHANDLER -DVI_MODE readli ne.c In file included from readline.c:50: rldefs.h:65: termcap.h: No such file or directory People that do not have termcap, but have ncurses, need to include <ncurses/termcap.h> instead. ncurses is the prefered a replacement of termcap and curses imho. Source code should be written for ncurses in the first place :)
It seems that gdb isn't supporting ncurses at all. I have to manually change gdb/Makefile to use TERMCAP=-lncurses instead of -ltermcap. That together with adding -I/usr/include/ncurses to CFLAGS makes it compile flawlessly. I used gdb-4.17.0.11.spec which isn't written by RedHat I think, but I suppose this problem is also in older versions. You can find this spec easily with a ftp search engine. I've found the #include <termcap.h> also in other packages than gdb and will report them here when I run into them again.
install libtermcap-devel