Additionally:

should the need arise, the actual box that i am attempting 
this on, is available (root access granted, nothing 
sensitive on the box, development and testing only) via ssh 
if required.

normally blocked by a firewall, i will allow the ssh access 
if you need it.

With that configure line you're definately NOT compiling
any shared extension of GD. Are you sure this is the correct
line? And what if you remove the 'extension=gd.so' from your
php.ini?

Sorry, pasted the wrong .configure line.

the one i should have pasted did have --with-gd=shared
that is the only difference.
I recompiled with --with-gd=/usr to see if GD would compile 
correctly into php itself.

I have not yet activated the libphp4.so that has GD 
compiled into it, to check if it worked, (and will comment 
out the appropriate lines in php.ini)

Can you please try the latest cvs snapshot from snaps.php.net and report back if it works for you now?

Derick

No feedback was provided for this bug for over a month, so it is
being suspended automatically. If you are able to provide the
information that was originally requested, please do so and change
the status of the bug back to "Open".

Compiling PHP4.2.2 with Apache 1.3.26 on Solaris 2.5.1  with the following:

./configure \
 --with-apxs=/usr/local/apache-1.3.26/bin/apxs \
 --prefix=/usr/local/php-4.2.2 \
 --with-openssl=/usr/local/openssl-0.9.6d \
 --with-gd=/usr/local/gd-1.8.4 \
 --with-jpeg-dir=/export/home/russell/build/jpeg-6b \
 --with-png-dir=/export/home/russell/build/libpng-1.2.1 \
 --with-zlib-dir=/export/home/russell/build/zlib-1.1.4 \
 --with-xml \
 --with-mysql=/usr/local/mysql \
 --enable-track-vars \
 --with-imap=/usr/local/imap-2001a \
 --with-imap-ssl=/usr/local/openssl-0.9.6d \
 --with-zlib

Previous compilations of with PHP 4.1.2 and Apache 1.3.23 worked just fine.

-- begin
Making all in gd
/bin/sh /export/home/russell/build/php-4.2.2/libtool --silent --mode=compile gcc  -I. -I/export/home/russell/build/php-4.2.2/ext/gd -I/export/home/russell/build/php-4.2.2/main -I/export/home/russell/build/php-4.2.2 -I/usr/local/apache-1.3.26/include -I/export/home/russell/build/php-4.2.2/Zend -I/usr/local/openssl-0.9.6d/include -I/usr/local/include -I/usr/local/gd-1.8.4/include -I/usr/local/imap-2001a/include -I/usr/local/mysql/include/mysql -I/export/home/russell/build/php-4.2.2/ext/xml/expat  -D_POSIX_PTHREAD_SEMANTICS -DSOLARIS2=251 -DUSE_EXPAT -I/export/home/russell/build/php-4.2.2/TSRM -g -O2 -prefer-pic  -c gd.c
In file included from gd.c:83:
gd_ctx.c:6: warning: `struct gdIOCtx' declared inside parameter list
gd_ctx.c:6: warning: its scope is only this definition or declaration, which is probably not what you want.
gd_ctx.c:12: warning: `struct gdIOCtx' declared inside parameter list
gd_ctx.c:18: warning: `struct gdIOCtx' declared inside parameter list
gd_ctx.c: In function `_php_image_output_ctx':
gd_ctx.c:33: `gdIOCtx' undeclared (first use in this function)
gd_ctx.c:33: (Each undeclared identifier is reported only once
gd_ctx.c:33: for each function it appears in.)
gd_ctx.c:33: `ctx' undeclared (first use in this function)
gd.c: At top level:
gd.c:101: parse error before `gdIOCtx'
gd.c: In function `_php_image_type':
gd.c:1010: `gdIOCtx' undeclared (first use in this function)
gd.c:1010: `io_ctx' undeclared (first use in this function)
gd.c:1013: `gdGetC' undeclared (first use in this function)
gd.c: In function `_php_image_create_from_string':
gd.c:1032: `gdIOCtx' undeclared (first use in this function)
gd.c:1032: `io_ctx' undeclared (first use in this function)
gd.c: In function `zif_imagecreatefromstring':
gd.c:1075: `gdImageCreateFromJpegCtx' undeclared (first use in this function)
gd.c:1084: `gdImageCreateFromPngCtx' undeclared (first use in this function)
gd.c:1102: `gdImageCreateFromWBMPCtx' undeclared (first use in this function)
gd.c:1111: `gdImageCreateFromGd2Ctx' undeclared (first use in this function)
gd.c: In function `_php_image_create_from':
gd.c:1183: `gdIOCtx' undeclared (first use in this function)
gd.c:1183: `io_ctx' undeclared (first use in this function)
gd.c:1184: parse error before `buff_size'
gd.c:1187: `buff_size' undeclared (first use in this function)
gd.c:1187: `buff_em' undeclared (first use in this function)
gd.c:1194: `buff' undeclared (first use in this function)
gd.c: In function `zif_imagecreatefromjpeg':
gd.c:1248: `gdImageCreateFromJpeg' undeclared (first use in this function)
gd.c:1248: `gdImageCreateFromJpegCtx' undeclared (first use in this function)
gd.c: In function `zif_imagecreatefrompng':
gd.c:1261: `gdImageCreateFromPng' undeclared (first use in this function)
gd.c:1261: `gdImageCreateFromPngCtx' undeclared (first use in this function)
gd.c: In function `zif_imagecreatefromwbmp':
gd.c:1304: `gdImageCreateFromWBMP' undeclared (first use in this function)
gd.c:1304: `gdImageCreateFromWBMPCtx' undeclared (first use in this function)
gd.c: In function `zif_imagecreatefromgd':
gd.c:1316: `gdImageCreateFromGdCtx' undeclared (first use in this function)
gd.c: In function `zif_imagecreatefromgd2':
gd.c:1325: `gdImageCreateFromGd2' undeclared (first use in this function)
gd.c:1325: `gdImageCreateFromGd2Ctx' undeclared (first use in this function)
gd.c: In function `zif_imagecreatefromgd2part':
gd.c:1338: `gdImageCreateFromGd2Part' undeclared (first use in this function)
gd.c:1338: `gdImageCreateFromGd2PartCtx' undeclared (first use in this function)
gd.c: In function `zif_imagepng':
gd.c:1479: `gdImagePngCtx' undeclared (first use in this function)
gd.c: In function `zif_imagejpeg':
gd.c:1496: `gdImageJpegCtx' undeclared (first use in this function)
gd.c: In function `zif_imagewbmp':
gd.c:1513: `gdImageWBMPCtx' undeclared (first use in this function)
gd.c: In function `zif_imagegd2':
gd.c:1537: `gdImageGd2' undeclared (first use in this function)
gd.c: At top level:
gd.c:3402: parse error before `gdIOCtx'
gd.c: In function `_php_image_bw_convert':
gd.c:3407: `im_org' undeclared (first use in this function)
gd.c:3433: `threshold' undeclared (first use in this function)
gd.c:3443: `gdImageWBMPCtx' used prior to declaration
gd.c:3443: `out' undeclared (first use in this function)
gd.c: In function `_php_image_convert':
gd.c:3531: `gdImageCreateFromJpeg' used prior to declaration
gd.c:3531: warning: assignment makes pointer from integer without a cast
gd.c:3542: `gdImageCreateFromPng' used prior to declaration
gd.c:3542: warning: assignment makes pointer from integer without a cast
*** Error code 1
make: Fatal error: Command failed for target `gd.lo'
Current working directory /export/home/russell/build/php-4.2.2/ext/gd
*** Error code 1
make: Fatal error: Command failed for target `all-recursive'
Current working directory /export/home/russell/build/php-4.2.2/ext/gd
*** Error code 1
make: Fatal error: Command failed for target `all-recursive'
Current working directory /export/home/russell/build/php-4.2.2/ext
*** Error code 1
make: Fatal error: Command failed for target `all-recursive'
-- end

Additional info from configure:

-- begin
 [...]
checking for GD support... yes
checking whether to enable truetype string function in GD... no
checking for the location of libjpeg... yes
checking for jpeg_read_header in -ljpeg... yes
checking for the location of libpng... yes
checking for png_write_image in -lpng... yes
checking for the location of libXpm... no
If configure fails try --with-xpm-dir=<DIR>
checking for freetype(2)... no
If configure fails try --with-freetype-dir=<DIR>
checking for FreeType 1.x support... no
checking for T1lib support... no
checking for gdImageString16 in -lgd... yes
checking for gdImagePaletteCopy in -lgd... yes
checking for gdImageCreateFromPng in -lgd... yes
checking for gdImageCreateFromGif in -lgd... no
checking for gdImageGif in -lgd... no
checking for gdImageWBMP in -lgd... yes
checking for gdImageCreateFromJpeg in -lgd... yes
checking for gdImageCreateFromXpm in -lgd... yes
checking for gdImageCreateFromGd2 in -lgd... yes
checking for gdImageCreateTrueColor in -lgd... no
checking for gdImageSetTile in -lgd... yes
checking for gdImageSetBrush in -lgd... yes
checking for gdImageStringTTF in -lgd... yes
checking for gdImageStringFT in -lgd... yes
checking for gdImageStringFTEx in -lgd... no
checking for gdImageColorClosestHWB in -lgd... yes
checking for gdImageColorResolve in -lgd... yes
checking for gdImageGifCtx in -lgd... no
 [...]
-- end