They added an option, `--with-strip-program` for this, you can set it to your crosscompiler's stript.

I found that in my case that's not the whole thing, since it will still try to build a terminfo db, which needs 'tic'. there's a fallback for that too, where it should use the one from the build host. a path can also be specified. In my case the host was too old and so the ncurses version it had also failed badly.

It's likely a case of more of RTFM but I'll also set out to just disable 'progs'

basically there seem to be ways to add the database, even a premade one. they are just a bit too hard to figure out when not being a ncurses developer.

though they have to be applauded, their configure script at least really catches all the potential problems.