having difficulties with mc/src/subshell.c

[Jason Hudgins <thanatos incantations net>]

I'm trying to fix a small problem with mc on Solaris 2.6

tcgetattr(&__iob[1], &shell_mode) works perfectly in my test code (it
returns true), however 
when I stick the exact same stuff into subshell.c in replacement of 
tcgetattr(STDOUT_FILENO, &shell_mode) I keep getting this when running
gmc:

subshell.c: couldn't get terminal settings: Bad file number

stdout is defined as &__iob[1] in Solaris's stdio.h.

perhaps STDOUT is no longer a valid file descriptor while running under
X?  I'm not 
enough of a unix guru to know.  Any pointers?