Extracted from Arch's patch
https://projects.archlinux.org/svntogit/community.git/tree/trunk/build-fix.patch?h=packages/checkinstall
diff -wbBur checkinstall-1.6.2/installwatch/installwatch.c checkinstall-1.6.2.my/installwatch/installwatch.c
--- checkinstall-1.6.2/installwatch/installwatch.c	2008-11-16 19:20:53.000000000 +0300
+++ checkinstall-1.6.2.my/installwatch/installwatch.c	2010-01-15 18:55:50.112716628 +0300
@@ -2938,13 +2938,8 @@
 	return result;
 }
 
-#if (GLIBC_MINOR <= 4)
-int readlink(const char *path,char *buf,size_t bufsiz) {
-	int result;
-#else
 ssize_t readlink(const char *path,char *buf,size_t bufsiz) {
 	ssize_t result;
-#endif
 	instw_t instw;
 	int status;