strange configure error on Linux Mint 18.3

[Thomas Stüfe]

Hi all,

I got a configure error on a fresh, virgin Linux Mint 18.3 install. I
have not yet installed anything on that box (the only thing I
installed is autoconf).

This fails at a point where normally I would get suggestions about
which tools to install with apt-get (which, btw, is really nice).
config.log contains this:

-------

Configured with: ../src/configure -v --with-pkgversion='Ubuntu
5.4.0-6ubuntu1~16.04.5'
--with-bugurl=file:///usr/share/doc/gcc-5/README.Bugs
--enable-languages=c,ada,c++,java,go,d,fortran,objc,obj-c++
--prefix=/usr --program-suffix=-5 --enable-shared
--enable-linker-build-id --libexecdir=/usr/lib
--without-included-gettext --enable-threads=posix --libdir=/usr/lib
--enable-nls --with-sysroot=/ --enable-clocale=gnu
--enable-libstdcxx-debug --enable-libstdcxx-time=yes
--with-default-libstdcxx-abi=new --enable-gnu-unique-object
--disable-vtable-verify --enable-libmpx --enable-plugin
--with-system-zlib --disable-browser-plugin --enable-java-awt=gtk
--enable-gtk-cairo
--with-java-home=/usr/lib/jvm/java-1.5.0-gcj-5-amd64/jre
--enable-java-home
--with-jvm-root-dir=/usr/lib/jvm/java-1.5.0-gcj-5-amd64
--with-jvm-jar-dir=/usr/lib/jvm-exports/java-1.5.0-gcj-5-amd64
--with-arch-directory=amd64
--with-ecj-jar=/usr/share/java/eclipse-ecj.jar --enable-objc-gc
--enable-multiarch --disable-werror --with-arch-32=i686 --with-abi=m64
--with-multilib-list=m32,m64,mx32 --enable-multilib
--with-tune=generic --enable-checking=release --build=x86_64-linux-gnu
--host=x86_64-linux-gnu --target=x86_64-linux-gnu
Thread model: posix
gcc version 5.4.0 20160609 (Ubuntu 5.4.0-6ubuntu1~16.04.5)
configure:35364: $? = 0
configure:35353: /usr/bin/gcc -V >&5
gcc: error: unrecognized command line option '-V'
gcc: fatal error: no input files
compilation terminated.
configure:35364: $? = 1
configure:35353: /usr/bin/gcc -qversion >&5
gcc: error: unrecognized command line option '-qversion'
gcc: fatal error: no input files
compilation terminated.
configure:35364: $? = 1
configure:35384: checking whether the C compiler works
configure:35406: /usr/bin/gcc -m64    -m64   conftest.c  >&5
/usr/bin/ld: cannot find crt1.o: No such file or directory
/usr/bin/ld: cannot find crti.o: No such file or directory
/usr/bin/ld: cannot find -lc
/usr/bin/ld: cannot find crtn.o: No such file or directory
collect2: error: ld returned 1 exit status
configure:35410: $? = 1
configure:35448: result: no
configure: failed program was:
| /* confdefs.h */
| #define PACKAGE_NAME "OpenJDK"
| #define PACKAGE_TARNAME "openjdk"
| #define PACKAGE_VERSION "jdk9"
| #define PACKAGE_STRING "OpenJDK jdk9"
| #define PACKAGE_BUGREPORT "build-dev at openjdk.java.net"
| #define PACKAGE_URL "http://openjdk.java.net"
| /* end confdefs.h.  */
|
| int
| main ()
| {
|
|   ;
|   return 0;
| }
configure:35453: error: in `/shared/projects/openjdk/jdk-jdk/output-fastdebug':
configure:35455: error: C compiler cannot create executables

-----------------

Weirdly enough the compiler is ran once with -qversion, which is an
AIX-only option, and once with -V, which is not valid either.

Has anyone seen this already? (Note that I used Mint18.3 as
development machine before and it just worked).

Thanks, Thomas