It turns out that 2.8.12 compiles and runs just fine. I'm guessing that 2.8.11 didn't like some lib version in Debian testing. I'm also happy to report no problems with denormal handling options (some users reported that FTZ and DAZ were greyed out on the menu, but it works fine here). CPU is Athlon 64X2 4850e in 64-bit mode. John