I'm using 3.0r2 on sparc. I installed apache and php4 via apt-get. Apache refuses to start with the following line uncommented in httpd.conf: # LoadModule php4_module /usr/lib/apache/1.3/libphp4.so Others have described exactly the same problem, on various architectures. THE SOLUTION: # echo "33554432" > /proc/sys/kernel/shmmax See: http://lists.slug.org.au/archives/slug/2003/05/msg00530.html