error compiling popt in ORBit

["William F. Maton" <wmaton ryouko dgim crc ca>]

Greets,

	Me compiler doesn't seem to be able to compile a library in popt:

(cd .libs && ln -s ../libpopt.la libpopt.la)
/bin/sh ./libtool --mode=link gcc  -Wall -g -O2  -o test1 -all-static
test1.o libpopt.la 
gcc -Wall -g -O2 -o test1 -static test1.o .libs/libpopt.al
.libs/libpopt.al: could not read symbols: Archive has no index; run ranlib
to add one
collect2: ld returned 1 exit status
make[4]: *** [test1] Error 1
make[4]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/gnome/ORBit/popt'
make[3]: *** [all-recursive] Error 1
make[3]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/gnome/ORBit/popt'
make[2]: *** [all-recursive-am] Error 2
make[2]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/gnome/ORBit/popt'
make[1]: *** [all-recursive] Error 1
make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/gnome/ORBit'
make: *** [all-recursive-am] Error 2
ldconfig: warning: can't open /usr/lib/libc.so.1 (No such file or
directory), skipping

Can anyone shed some light?

I'm using a linux-ix86 system with glibc 2.1.2, egcs-1.1.1 release.

TIA

wfms