I'm doing a brand new install of Gentoo on a Celeron 300 with 128mb of ram. I started with a Stage 1 only ISO from gentoo.org. I set my CFLAGS to be "-march=pentium2 -O3 -pipe". During the compilation of glibc-2.3.1, I got segfaults. I didn't check to see if they always occurred in the same place. At the suggestion of someone on #gentoo (irc.freenode.net) I reduced this to -O2. glibc-2.3.1 compiled successfully, and the bootstrap finished. I started an `emerge system' which went as far as db, which dies with the following message: gcc -o db_dump185 db_dump185.o -ldb1 db_dump185.o(.text+0x11d): In function `main': : undefined reference to `dbopen' db_dump185.o(.text+0x157): In function `main': : undefined reference to `dbopen' collect2: ld returned 1 exit status make: *** [db_dump185] Error 1 !!! ERROR: sys-libs/db-3.2.9-r2 failed. !!! Function src_compile, Line 89, Exitcode 2 !!! Static build failed I tried an `emerge sync'. This happened during the time that glibc-2.3.2 was moved from ~x86 to x86. It segfaulted in strdup.c (string2.h). I didn't try a second time to see if the segfault was consistet or random. I `emerge sync'd again, after glibc-2.3.2 had been moved back to ~x86. db still died with the same error. I did an `rm -rf /var/tmp/portage/db*' - still the same. Shortly before it dies, I get this, which may or may not be relevant: /usr/lib/gcc-lib/i686-pc-linux-gnu/3.2.2/include/g++-v3/backward/backward_warning.h:32:2: warning: #warning This file includes at least one deprecated or antiquated header. Please consider using one of the 32 headers found in section 17.4.1.2 of the C++ standard. Examples include substituting the <X> header for the <X.h> header for C++ includes, or <sstream> instead of the deprecated header <strstream.h>. To disable this warning use -Wno-deprecated.
One reference to something possibly related to this problem that I can find on the 'net is: http://www.sleepycat.com/docs/ref/build_unix/notes.html Scroll down to the bottom, part 7. It indicates that the db-1.85 libraries have to be properly installed for this to complete. db-1.85-r1 is installed on my system, I've tried emerging it again but it doesn't seem to make any difference. During the emerge of 1.85, it gives this: patching file recno/rec_put.c patch: **** malformed patch at line 725: ! if (flags == R_SETCURSOR) This may not be relevant; perhaps it should be filed as a separate bug.
I think there is something seriously wrong with my system. Earlier today it gave me a segfault while doing the "Updating Portage cache" part of `emerge sync' and just now it died during the configure of db, complaining that it couldn't find qsort, and I ran `emerge system' again straight away and that worked. Things goind randomly wrong is not a good state for a server to be in. I might try doing a memory test when I get home today, but if anyone could make some helpful suggestions in the meantime it would be appreciated. I'm not sure any more whether it's worth leaving this bug open, although it's the only thing going wrong with my system that seems to be consistently reproducible so I will.
Okay, I did a memtest86 and it turns out one of my two memory sticks is faulty; a series of almost-consecutive words have their lowest bit stuck at 1. This probably causes misaligned memory reads for any addresses stored in those locations. I've removed that stick and extensively tested the other, and since then haven't had a problem. A clean installation has now gotten past compiling db, so it seems this was entirely related to the memory problems, despite the apparent reproducibility of the bug. Please close this bug report.
bad memory cause this
