[OT] Linux stability despite unstable hardware

[Timothy Miller <miller@techsource.com>]

I have had some issues recently with memory errors when using aggressive 
memory timings.  Although memory tests (like memtest86) pass fine, gcc 
would tend to crash and would generate incorrect code when compiling 
other things.  Gcc couldn't even build itself properly under those 
conditions.

The really interesting thing is that the Linux kernel was totally
unaffected.  Compiling the Linux kernel is often thought of as a
stressful thing for a system, yet compiling a kernel with a broken gcc
on a system with intermittent memory errors goes through error free, and
the kernel is 100% stable when running.

But until the memory errors were fixed, things like KDE wouldn't build
without gcc crashing.

So, what is it about Linux that makes it build properly with a broken
GCC and run perfectly despite memory errors?