diff --git a/ChangeLog b/ChangeLog
index 0287efa03ed3c2c2687cad54ffcc7aa0aae64e13..cf313b1dc5c16c256f4d99bc0620c41ed28b3ee4 100644
--- a/ChangeLog
+++ b/ChangeLog
@@ -1,3 +1,7 @@
+2008-11-07  Glenn Morris  <rgm@gnu.org>
+
+	* configure.in (HAVE_LIB64_DIR): Check for crtn.o.  (Bug#1287)
+
 2008-10-31  Eli Zaretskii  <eliz@gnu.org>
 
 	* config.bat: Tell user to expect one "File not found" message
diff --git a/configure.in b/configure.in
index e40203bb38cf37a87faa0ef888d002495be9e4b6..1cd2c439c4bcb4dd5d7f5281b3a89a29f9fd1290 100644
--- a/configure.in
+++ b/configure.in
@@ -907,9 +907,11 @@ AC_SYS_LARGEFILE
 
 ### The standard library on x86-64 and s390x GNU/Linux distributions can
 ### be located in either /usr/lib64 or /usr/lib.
+### In some rare cases, /usr/lib64 exists but does not contain the
+### relevant files (bug#1287).  Hence test for crtn.o.
 case "${canonical}" in
   x86_64-*-linux-gnu* | s390x-*-linux-gnu* )
-    if test -d /usr/lib64; then
+    if test -e /usr/lib64/crtn.o; then
       AC_DEFINE(HAVE_LIB64_DIR, 1,
         [Define to 1 if the directory /usr/lib64 exists.])
 fi