Figured I would post this so it may help someone having this problem.
There is a bug in the liblinker in mysql-devel 4.1.16 or higher. When trying to compile apache,php the compile will error out with liblinker: can not find /usr/lib/mysql/libz.la. The only known fix if you have this issue is to downgrade the mysql-devel-4.1.x to version 4.1.13. We had this issue this morning on a fresh install and upon researching using google its a known bug affecting RHEL3,4 and CentOS 3,4. The bug also is found in mysql 5.0.16. I repeat the only known fix available at this time is to downgrade the mysql-devel rpm to 4.1.13 or install from the src rpm and recompile apache and php.
There is a bug in the liblinker in mysql-devel 4.1.16 or higher. When trying to compile apache,php the compile will error out with liblinker: can not find /usr/lib/mysql/libz.la. The only known fix if you have this issue is to downgrade the mysql-devel-4.1.x to version 4.1.13. We had this issue this morning on a fresh install and upon researching using google its a known bug affecting RHEL3,4 and CentOS 3,4. The bug also is found in mysql 5.0.16. I repeat the only known fix available at this time is to downgrade the mysql-devel rpm to 4.1.13 or install from the src rpm and recompile apache and php.