I found the culprit, but don't know what the proper fix is.
File - What to remove or comment out
/usr/src/linux/include/asm/cpu-features.h - #include <cpu-feature-overrides.h>
/usr/src/linux/include/asm/addrspace.h - #include <spaces.h>
But it still fails, because it looks at the headers in /usr/include and the ones is /usr/src/linux/include, which is what the problem is. Namely socket.h
What I noticed is some of the mips architectures includes have these files and some do not.
A workaround for those who use the linux-libc-headers to build iptables with the following commands, but I would still comment out those files to prevent other build issues later
make KERNEL_DIR=/usr
But I'm not sure of the stability and the functionality.
-- ---- Jim Gifford maillist@xxxxxxxxx