1) it's not associated with gc (running with GOGC=off and it still fails)
2) it's associated with processes (if you just create a file in the expected place using Go code rather than running gccgo -- or even touch! -- to create it, it doesn't fail)
3) gdb has all sorts of strange problems trying to probe the heap structures :/
So, some playing around reveals:
1) it's not associated with gc (running with GOGC=off and it still fails)
2) it's associated with processes (if you just create a file in the expected place using Go code rather than running gccgo -- or even touch! -- to create it, it doesn't fail)
3) gdb has all sorts of strange problems trying to probe the heap structures :/