Library compatibility problem?

[seeone]

Hi all, sure hope this is the correct forum for this question..

Not being a C programmer myself, I sure hope someone here can give me some insight into this problem.
I have tried to install the Oracle forms./reports toolset on a variety of different Linux distributions, only to encounter essentially the same type of errors. That is, 'make' errors or 'relink' errors.
This particular toolset was known to work on RedHat 7.3 - Oracle says it is 'certified' on that, but after that only on SuSE or RedHat Enterprise Server versions.
Based on advice found on the net, I have added 'compat' rpms, changed the order of the path entries, and applied assorted other fixes trying to get this program set to install correctly on a newer distribution - like Fedora, or Slackware 9.1 or Mandrake 9, or SuSE 9, or WhiteBox Linux 3, or RedHat Professional Workstation (WS 3) - all with about the same set of errors, either it won't make correctly or something won't relink correctly.
I don't expect anyone here to solve this problem for me, I just need to know if this type of problem is solvable at all, and if so, where do I go to get some more knowledge so I can figure out how to solve it? Does all this just boil down to library incompatibilities? If so, how do you ever get a program that was written/compiled with one set of libraries to work on a later/different distro with a newer set of libraries? Aren't all these things backward compatible?
Where can I go from here? Thanks for anything you can add to my education!
Here is a small excerpt from the make log:
: undefined reference to `__ctype_b'
/u01/app/oracle/product/6i/network/lib/libnsgl.a(nsglsn.o)(.text+0xb55): In function `nsglldprm':
: undefined reference to `__ctype_b'
collect2: ld returned 1 exit status
make: *** [tnslsnr] Error 1
}
Status: 2

[infamous]

yes it is very solvable. unresolved references mean that you either, dont have the correct libs, or those libs are not being included properly by the compiler. u need to first figure out where that function is supposed to be defined(what lib file), and then see if u have that lib on ur comp, and if it is installed in a directory where gcc will find it.

[seeone]

Thanks infamous. I am tied up on some other stuff right now, but as soon as I get back to this problem I will follow up on what you suggested.