Missing shared object?

[nepal]

Hello List.

Can anyone confirm that I have a problem here. This is a 64 bit Karmik 
install.

I am trying to compile some source and when I run ./configure it 
eventually stops with an error for cannot find "libm".

I have checked the /usr subdirectories /lib, /ib32 and /lib64 for 
libm.so and libm.a

There is a file libm.a (apparently libm is a math library, the .a is 
the static library file and the .so is the dynamic library file.)

On searching for libm.so though, all the entries are actually just 
pointers to a libmxxxxx.so.6 which does not exist. So this actual 
library file is missing. I have not been able to find anything that I 
could install that would correct this. 

Can anyone help please?

TIA.

nepal.