Hi again, The various replies set me thinking again.
The non-global zone is indeed a whole root zone. However, the users home directory filesystem /export is a loopback filesystem from the global zone, so that users in all the zones share a common home directory structure. I was building the hobbit kit in a subdirectory of /export/home/user1. I had tried running the config/make sequence as both user1 and as root, both failed as previously described.
As a result of the replies, I tried unpacking the kit in the root filesystem, in /usr/local. I ran the configure/make sequence as root (I know, it's not best practice, but I was getting desperate) and it worked!
I don't fully understand why - I thought hte root filesystem in a non-global zone was effectively a loopback filesystem similar to my /export filesystem, but that's the only difference I can see between this and my previous efforts.
I now have a problem with the make install, but that looks like a simple library path issue, so back to trawling the mail archives for me :-)
Thanks again for all the contributions,
Cheers,
John