gnome-gen-mimedb (gnome-libs) segfault

[Aspiring GNOME User <unit lgcy com>]

Hello, all. Have been using KDE, but with the GNOME-1.0 release, thought
we'd give GNOME a try (variety is always good). Unfortunately, we're
having some trouble compiling from source on a progressively more
mangled OpenLinux 1.3 system. Compilation goes fine of all support
packages in order, as per instructions on the gnome website. All looks
good, no complaints from anything, and the gnome-libs tarball compiles
correctly -- it would appear.

However, when we run a make install in gnome-libs-1.0.1, install
eventually attempts to run gnome-gen-mimedb, causing a segmentation
fault (splats added for emphasis):

---- begin relevant transcript ----
...
make[2]: Entering directory `/argh/gsrc/gnome-libs-1.0.1/gnome-data'
/bin/sh ../mkinstalldirs /opt/etc
 /usr/bin/install -c -m 644 ./paper.config /opt/etc/paper.config
 /usr/bin/install -c -m 644 ./mime-magic /opt/etc/mime-magic
/bin/sh ../mkinstalldirs /opt/share/type-convert
 /usr/bin/install -c  gnome-make-postscript-mimes
/opt/share/type-convert/gnome-make-postscript-mimes
/bin/sh ../mkinstalldirs /opt/share/type-convert
 /usr/bin/install -c -m 644 ./type.convert
/opt/share/type-convert/type.convert
 /usr/bin/install -c -m 644 ./postscript.convert
/opt/share/type-convert/postscript.convert
/bin/sh ../mkinstalldirs /opt/share/mime-info
 /usr/bin/install -c -m 644 ./gnome.mime /opt/share/mime-info/gnome.mime
/bin/sh ../mkinstalldirs /opt/etc/sound/events
 /usr/bin/install -c -m 644 ./gnome.soundlist
/opt/etc/sound/events/gnome.soundlist
 /usr/bin/install -c -m 644 ./gtk-events.soundlist
/opt/etc/sound/events/gtk-events.soundlist
/bin/sh ../mkinstalldirs /opt/var/games
chgrp games /opt/var/games && chmod g=rwXs /opt/var/games
../libgnome/gnome-gen-mimedb /opt/etc/mime-magic
make[2]: *** [install-data-local] ***Segmentation fault***
make[2]: Leaving directory `/argh/gsrc/gnome-libs-1.0.1/gnome-data'
make[1]: *** [install-am] Error 2
make[1]: Leaving directory `/argh/gsrc/gnome-libs-1.0.1/gnome-data'
make: *** [install-recursive] Error 1      
---- end relevant transcript ----

A quick check using gdb (i.e. very quick) says that the offending line
in gnome-gen-mimedb.c is line 45:

ents = gnome_magic_parse(filename, &nents);

I can find nothing wrong with this line, nor with any of the related
code or sourcefiles (clearly my gdb skill is quite lacking). We have
attempted/done all of the following:

1. Recompilation of *all* depended-upon libraries, even when the system
already contained the necessary support library of the correct version.

2. Installation of egcs and attempts to recompile everything using it
instead of gcc 2.7.2.3.

3. Installation of a freshly compiled glibc-2.0.7, recompilation of
everything to be glibc-2.0.7 based, and subsequent checking of all
dynamic dependencies as well as can be done with the Linux ldd command. 

Everything continues to look good -- no major errors or warnings in
configuration or compilation each time we try again -- just the segfault
when we finally get to installing gnome-libs.

The systems in question are originally libc5-based, OpenLinux 1.3, and
the test system we've been using is now fairly mangled: egcs instead of
gcc, upgrades to glibc and recompilation of a good 50% of the libraries
on the system to fix libc5/libc6 conficts, many location changes, and so
forth -- and we still get the same segfault.

Questions:

1) Has anyone else on this list experienced this problem? There is one
post on Slashdot's Gnome-1.0 story about it and one DejaNews post about
it, but neither has been replied to.

2) This has now eaten a day of our time -- without having to study and
learn the gnome-libs sources ourselves (using more days), does anyone
know if there is any reason why installing everything in /opt would
cause problems? Are there any other obvious things that could cause this
problem?

Anyone have any ideas? Thanks in advance for your help!

--
Use Linux. It's cool.
Use Email. It's cool.