Segmentation fault with 2.1.118

["Andy Almond" <aalmond fs1 scg man ac uk>]

Dear all,

Have just compiled kernel 2.1.118 with gcc 2.7.2.3. It boots OK on my 
PC164LX Alpha machine (RedHat 5.1),
and on the whole it seems to be working 
pretty well. However, I have noticed some strange seg faults when 
running some of my simulation software (doesn't use graphics or 
anything complicated like that)
which I didn't notice when 
using a 2.0 kernel. Specifically when I have a single instance of the 
software running it's OK and say has a total size of 19Mb according 
to top. However, when I attempt to create a *second* instance of the 
same program I get a seg fault. There's plenty of memory available 
(256Mb RAM, 256Mb Swap). I ran the code with strace and it appeared 
to die while executing a 'brk' call, which I don't understand 
personally, but seems to be a memory operation, and therefore I 
assume that the problem is within the kernel. I can provide any other 
information that may be useful in diagnosing the problem. Incidently 
I also noticed the same problem with kernel 2.1.113.

Andy Almond

University of Manchester. UK.