I upgraded ncurses from 5.2-18 to 5.2-24. It broke the kernel configuration
command "make menuconfig" (at least kernel-2.4.17 and kernel-2.4.18).

baud:/usr/local/src/linux-2.4.18# make menuconfig
rm -f include/asm
( cd include ; ln -sf asm-i386 asm)
make -C scripts/lxdialog all
make[1]: Entering directory `/usr/local/src/linux-2.4.18/scripts/lxdialog'
gcc -Wall -Wstrict-prototypes -O2 -fomit-frame-pointer -DLOCALE 
-I/usr/include/ncurses -DCURSES_LOC="<ncurses.h>" -c -o checklist.o checklist.c
checklist.c: In function `dialog_checklist':
checklist.c:154: `TRUE' undeclared (first use in this function)
checklist.c:154: (Each undeclared identifier is reported only once
checklist.c:154: for each function it appears in.)
checklist.c:241: `FALSE' undeclared (first use in this function)
make[1]: *** [checklist.o] Error 1
make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/local/src/linux-2.4.18/scripts/lxdialog'
make: *** [menuconfig] Error 2