coreutils 8.5-1ubuntu1 FTBFS on armel, powerpc, sparc (test-linkat assert fail)

Binary package hint: coreutils

The latest coreutils upload is consistently failing to build on armel, powerpc, and sparc ports with an assertion failure in the gnulib test suite. Example:
  http://launchpadlibrarian.net/49967083/buildlog_ubuntu-maverick-armel.coreutils_8.5-1ubuntu1_FAILEDTOBUILD.txt.gz

The failing test is:
[...]
/bin/bash: line 1: 2407 Aborted EXEEXT='' srcdir='.' USE_ACL=1 LOCALE_FR='none' LOCALE_FR_UTF8='none' LOCALE_FR='none' LOCALE_TR_UTF8='none' LOCALE_FR='none' LOCALE_FR_UTF8='none' LOCALE_JA='none' LOCALE_ZH_CN='none' LOCALE_TR_UTF8='none' LOCALE_FR_UTF8='none' LOCALE_FR='none' LOCALE_FR_UTF8='none' LOCALE_JA='none' LOCALE_ZH_CN='none' LOCALE_FR_UTF8='none' LOCALE_ZH_CN='none' LOCALE_FR='none' LOCALE_FR_UTF8='none' LOCALE_FR='none' LOCALE_FR_UTF8='none' PATH='/build/buildd/coreutils-8.5/build-aux':"$PATH" PATH='/build/buildd/coreutils-8.5/build-aux':"$PATH" LOCALE_FR='none' LOCALE_FR_UTF8='none' LOCALE_JA='none' LOCALE_ZH_CN='none' "$tst" > test-linkat.log-t 2>&1
FAIL: test-linkat
[...]

This appears to be a regression in coreutils itself, not in the toolchain or libraries; the 'linkat' test is newly added in the newer upstream version, it was not present at all in the source to coreutils 7.4.

Interestingly, the coreutils 8.5-1 build succeeded on all these architectures in Debian.

Testing on both armel and amd64, I see that REPLACE_LINKAT is being defined to 1 in the build (but the gnulib linkat replacement is not being linked into the testsuite), and LINK_FOLLOWS_SYMLINKS is being defined to 0.

Running the test by itself gives this output:

$ EXEEXT='' srcdir='.' USE_ACL=1 LOCALE_FR='none' LOCALE_FR_UTF8='none' LOCALE_FR='none' LOCALE_TR_UTF8='none' LOCALE_FR='none' LOCALE_FR_UTF8='none' LOCALE_JA='none' LOCALE_ZH_CN='none' LOCALE_TR_UTF8='none' LOCALE_FR_UTF8='none' LOCALE_FR='none' LOCALE_FR_UTF8='none' LOCALE_JA='none' LOCALE_ZH_CN='none' LOCALE_FR_UTF8='none' LOCALE_ZH_CN='none' LOCALE_FR='none' LOCALE_FR_UTF8='none' LOCALE_FR='none' LOCALE_FR_UTF8='none' PATH='/home/devel/canonical/maverick/coreutils-8.5/build-aux':"$PATH" PATH='/home/devel/canonical/maverick/coreutils-8.5/build-aux':"$PATH" LOCALE_FR='none' LOCALE_FR_UTF8='none' LOCALE_JA='none' LOCALE_ZH_CN='none' ./test-linkat
test-linkat.c:76: assertion failed
Aborted
$

Differential strace - amd64:

linkat(3, "test-linkat.tlink1", 3, "test-linkat.tlink5", 0) = 0
lstat("test-linkat.tlink1", {st_dev=makedev(254, 0), st_ino=115037, st_mode=S_IFLNK|0777, st_nlink=2, st_uid=1000, st_gid=1000, st_blksize=4096, st_blocks=0, st_size=17, st_atime=2010/06/09-23:09:34, st_mtime=2010/06/09-23:09:34, st_ctime=2010/06/09-23:09:34}) = 0
lstat("test-linkat.tlink5", {st_dev=makedev(254, 0), st_ino=115037, st_mode=S_IFLNK|0777, st_nlink=2, st_uid=1000, st_gid=1000, st_blksize=4096, st_blocks=0, st_size=17, st_atime=2010/06/09-23:09:34, st_mtime=2010/06/09-23:09:34, st_ctime=2010/06/09-23:09:34}) = 0
readlink("test-linkat.tlink1", "test-linkat.tsub1"..., 18) = 17
readlink("test-linkat.tlink5", "test-linkat.tsub1"..., 18) = 17
unlink("test-linkat.tlink5") = 0

and armel:

linkat(3, "test-linkat.tlink1", 3, "test-linkat.tlink5", 0) = 0
lstat64("test-linkat.tlink1", {st_dev=makedev(179, 2), st_ino=60332, st_mode=S_IFLNK|0777, st_nlink=2, st_uid=1000, st_gid=1000, st_blksize=4096, st_blocks=0, st_size=17, st_atime=2010/06/09-23:09:26, st_mtime=2010/06/09-23:09:26, st_ctime=2010/06/09-23:09:26}) = 0
lstat64("test-linkat.tlink5", {st_dev=makedev(179, 2), st_ino=60332, st_mode=S_IFLNK|0777, st_nlink=2, st_uid=1000, st_gid=1000, st_blksize=4096, st_blocks=0, st_size=17, st_atime=2010/06/09-23:09:26, st_mtime=2010/06/09-23:09:26, st_ctime=2010/06/09-23:09:26}) = 0
readlink("test-linkat.tlink1", "test-linkat.tsub1"..., 1025) = 17
readlink("test-linkat.tlink5", "test-linkat.tsub1", 1025) = 17
fstat64(1, {st_dev=makedev(0, 12), st_ino=4, st_mode=S_IFCHR|0620, st_nlink=1, st_uid=1000, st_gid=5, st_blksize=1024, st_blocks=0, st_rdev=makedev(136, 1), st_atime=2010/06/09-23:09:25, st_mtime=2010/06/09-23:09:26, st_ctime=2010/06/08-23:49:49}) = 0