Index: configure.ac
===================================================================
--- configure.ac	(revision 201292)
+++ configure.ac	(working copy)
@@ -2861,6 +2861,26 @@ case "${target}" in
     ;;
 esac
 
+# Special user-friendly check for native x86_64-linux build, if
+# multilib is not explicitly enabled.
+case "$target:$have_compiler:$host:$target:$enable_multilib" in
+  x86_64-*linux*:yes:$build:$build:)
+    # Make sure we have a developement environment that handles 32-bit
+    dev64=no
+    echo "int main () { return 0; }" > conftest.c
+    ${CC} -m32 -o conftest ${CFLAGS} ${CPPFLAGS} ${LDFLAGS} conftest.c
+    if test $? = 0 ; then
+      if test -s conftest || test -s conftest.exe ; then
+	dev64=yes
+      fi
+    fi 
+    rm -f conftest*
+    if test x${dev64} != xyes ; then
+      AC_MSG_ERROR([I suspect your system does not have 32-bit developement libraries (libc and headers). If you have them, rerun configure with --enable-multilib. If you do not have them, and want to build a 64-bit-only compiler, rerun configure with --disable-multilib.])
+    fi
+    ;;
+esac
+
 # Default to --enable-multilib.
 if test x${enable_multilib} = x ; then
   target_configargs="--enable-multilib ${target_configargs}"