gdb: fatal: libncurses.so.5: open failed: No such file or dir ectory

[Michael Elizabeth Chastain]

It's likely that the account that built gdb has an LD_LIBRARY_PATH
that locates libncurses, but your root account does not have that
LD_LIBRARY_PATH.  That would explain why 'root' is unable to find
libncurses.so.5 when gdb starts up.

First, try running gdb from the same account that you built it.
See if that works.

Then, check the environment variable LD_LIBRARY_PATH in the
account that you built gdb and in the account that you are
running it.  (I'm not sure I've got the name right for Solaris --
do an 'env' command and look for anything with a similar name).

Hope this helps,

Michael C