Can't install PHP > 5.2.0

["Doug Tabacco" <tabacco@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi there!

So right now I'm running PHP 5.2.0.  I'd very much like to move up to
5.2.5 to take advantage of fixes and so forth, but I'm having some
trouble.  When I try to 'make install' any version of PHP newer than
5.2.0, Apache will die quietly on startup, without logging any errors,
no matter how verbose I set logging.  If I then re-'make install' 5.2.0,
it works great again.  I can recompile 5.2.0 with different options,
different versions of libraries, or pretty much anything and it keeps
working.

Obviously, I can't provide much in the way of debug output from apache,
but I'll try to give some basic info here.  If anyone has ideas or wants
to see longer stuff like configure output, just let me know.

The OS: Redhat EL4
The Apache: Apache/2.0.52 (from RHN RPMs)
The uname -a: Linux telltalegames 2.6.9-67.0.4.ELsmp #1 SMP Fri Jan 18
05:00:58 EST 2008 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux
Configure options:
./configure --with-gd --enable-magic-quotes --with-pear --with-regex
--with-zlib-dir=/usr/include --with-mysql=/usr/lib/mysql
--with-pgsql=/usr/lib/pgsql --disable-url-fopen-wrapper
--with-config-file-path=/ --with-gettext --with-imap=/usr/include/imap
--with-kerberos --with-imap-ssl
--with-freetype-dir=/usr/local/include/freetype2 --enable-gd-native-ttf
--with-jpeg-dir=/usr/lib --with-apxs2=/usr/sbin/apxs
--with-mcrypt=/usr/local/lib/ --with-curl


No errors reported during ./configure or make.  I've tried 'make clean'
just to be sure, and as for 'make test', there's some bonus story to
tell (a possible clue)...

On versions > 5.2.0, adding the --with-config-file-path=/etc option
seems to break something.  When that option is included, 'make test'
does this:

---------------
[tabacco@telltalegames php-5.2.5]# make test

Build complete.
Don't forget to run 'make test'.

make: [test] Error 254 (ignored)
[tabacco@telltalegames php-5.2.5]#
---------------

If I then clean and recompile without that option, make test works
normally.  Either way, though, the same thing happens when I install the
results.  That error being caused by such a (seemingly) benign option
seems pretty suspicious, though.