From kde-core-devel  Mon Nov 16 10:22:09 2009
From: Stephan Kulow <coolo () kde ! org>
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 2009 10:22:09 +0000
To: kde-core-devel
Subject: Re: Deactivate MALLOC_CHECK_ on x86_64
Message-Id: <200911161122.09852.coolo () kde ! org>
X-MARC-Message: https://marc.info/?l=kde-core-devel&m=125836696417178

Am Freitag 13 November 2009 schrieb Raphael Kubo da Costa:
> On Friday 13 November 2009 13:11:57 Alex Fiestas wrote:
> > Hi
> > Seems that MALLOC_CHECK_ feature of glibc is kind of broken in x86_64,
> >  giving false positives. In release mode this has no effect to the user,
> >  just when you're running KDE in development mode, MALLOC_CHECK_ will be
> >  set at 2, which means that malloc will abort the application when one of
> >  that false given errors happen.
> >
> > So I suggest to deactivate MALLOC_CHECK_ on 64 bits systems, at least
> > until it gets fixed.
> >
> > Some applications that usually crash on my system are:
> > - digikam (I'm in digikam sprint right now and I've asked gilles and he
> > agrees)
> > - kdevelop (I'm with apol here and he's concerned about this issue too).
> >
> > Everybody agrees with that?
> >
> > *http://techbase.kde.org/Development/malloc_check
> 
> Are you sure about it being broken only in x86_64? I'm running x86 and
>  always get false positives too. I don't remember mpyne or maelcum
>  perceiving it as a 64-bit-only problem either.
> 
It's broken in glibc 2.10, not architecture specific. openSUSE runs the whole
system during the beta phase on MALLOC_CHECK_=3 and we had a lot of fun with 
this ;(

But disabling MALLOC_CHECK_ on KDE makes little sense as KDE has almost no
way to find out if the system is affected or not - openSUSE's glibc 2.10 is
not. Perhaps you can apply openSUSE's patch to your glibc?

Greetings, Stephan