Internal compiler error

[James Leigh <james.leigh@ottawa.com>]

Can anybody tell me why I get this error so _much_ when I am compiling a
kernel?

I litteraly get it hundreds of times (seriously).  I wrote a script that
gives up after 256 errors, and I it still times outs.

I am using debian woody with kernel 2.2.17.
I do have bin86 installed and these other programs too:
gcc            2.95.2-20
make           3.79.1-1
bin86          0.15.3-1
binutils       2.10.1.0.2-1
bzip2          1.0.1-2
fileutils      4.0.32-1
libncurses5-dev 5.0-8
kernel-source-2.2.17        2.2.17-1

I do not have as much trouble compiling programs, but real trouble
compiling a kernel.  This is the error I always get.  It seems that it
returns the error for almost every f*n *.c file in there, one after
another.  Some of then take over fifty times running make bzImage before
the process moves on.
cc: Internal compiler error: program cc1 got fatal signal 11

By running the command that it barfed on, some times it too returns the
same error, other times it successed.

Compiling a kernel on a 400MHz is now an overnight job, once I let it go
over night, and it was STILL working on it the next
morning!!!  Incredable!
while ! make bzImage ; do sleep 1 ; done

If any one has heard of this happening before, please send me a line.

( don't even get me started on the ordeal I went through with 2.2.18 )

james