Re: bad posix_fadvise support causes initdb to exit ungracefully

On Wed, Jun 15, 2011 at 11:12 AM, Merlin Moncure <mmoncure@gmail.com> wrote:
> Due to unfortunate environmental conditions (don't ask) I've been
> trying to get postgres 9.0 up and running on a fairly ancient linux --
> redhat EL 3 which as kernel 2.4.21.   initdb borks on the create
> database step with the error message "child process exited with error
> code 139".  A bit of tracing revealed the exit was happening at the
> pg_flush_data which basically wraps posix_fadvise.   Disabling fadvise
> support in pg_config_manual.h fixed the problem.
>
> Things brings up a couple of questions:
> *) Are linuxes this old out of support?
> *) Should configure be testing for working posix_fadvise?

some searching of the archives turned up this:
http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-committers/2010-02/msg00175.php
which pretty much explains the issue (see subsequent discussion).

merlin