Seg faults/Internal compiler errors when using Linux swapfil

[John Linebarger]

     You're gonna hate me for the lack of specificity here, but I've been 
     using egcs as my compiler for months now, and I've noticed a problem.  
     At least under Slackware Linux, kernel 2.0.34, with a 64M swap file, 
     running on a 233MHz Pentium MMX PC with 64M of main memory and lots of 
     EIDE hard drive space, here's what I consistently notice:
     
     1. Seg faults (sig 11) during compilation.
     2. "Internal compiler error" messages
     3. "Attempt to remove invalid swap file page" messages (rare)
     
     In *each* case, I simply retype "make," and the compiler just picks up 
     where it left off.  I often have to do this several times in trying to 
     compile large packages or the Linux kernel.
     
     The swap file message gave me a clue, so I added more memory to my 
     Linux box (I'm running at 128M now), and removed all swap partitions.  
     I noticed that the incidence of the above errors sharply decreased, 
     but did not go away entirely.
     
     So I conclude that egcs has difficulty in using Intel Linux swap 
     space; it is especially bad when running in an Xterm window in 
     X-Windows, where less space is available.  It is better running in raw 
     console mode.
     
     However, at work where I have a 333 MHz Pentium-II with 256 MB of 
     SDRAM memory and a similar Linux software configuration and no swap 
     file, I get even fewer of the errors I describe above.
     
     Is this an egcs bug?  A Linux swap file bug?  Are other people 
     reporting similar impressions and experiences?
     
     Thanks!
     
     John M. Linebarger
     Sandia National Laboratories