diff --git a/package/gdb/gdb.mk b/package/gdb/gdb.mk
index 98183206f9..4b9a757154 100644
--- a/package/gdb/gdb.mk
+++ b/package/gdb/gdb.mk
@@ -33,7 +33,8 @@ ifeq ($(BR2_PACKAGE_GDB_DEBUGGER),)
 GDB_SUBDIR = gdb/gdbserver
 HOST_GDB_SUBDIR = .
 else
-GDB_DEPENDENCIES = ncurses
+GDB_DEPENDENCIES = ncurses \
+	$(if $(BR2_PACKAGE_LIBICONV),libiconv)
 endif
 
 # For the host variant, we really want to build with XML support,
@@ -98,6 +99,20 @@ else
 GDB_CONF_OPTS += --without-python
 endif
 
+ifeq ($(BR2_PACKAGE_EXPAT),y)
+GDB_CONF_OPTS += --with-expat
+GDB_DEPENDENCIES += expat
+else
+GDB_CONF_OPTS += --without-expat
+endif
+
+ifeq ($(BR2_PACKAGE_ZLIB),y)
+GDB_CONF_OPTS += --with-zlib
+GDB_DEPENDENCIES += zlib
+else
+GDB_CONF_OPTS += --without-zlib
+endif
+
 # This removes some unneeded Python scripts and XML target description
 # files that are not useful for a normal usage of the debugger.
 define GDB_REMOVE_UNNEEDED_FILES