Executing java with a large maximum heap crashes the VM during the
initialization phase.... on Linux only. The crash happens with any
value larger than 1898M, and was introduced in Tiger->build_23

Given that the value is less than 2Gb, its possible/probable that a
user will run into this problem, and become a call generator

The VM shouldn't crash, and should print out a nice error message :-)

Here are the crash outputs for java and java_g

======================================================================
java -mx1899M -version
#
# An unexpected error has been detected by HotSpot Virtual Machine:
#
# Internal Error (4D454D324547494F4E0E435050004F), pid=31587, tid=1024
#
# Java VM: Java HotSpot(TM) Server VM (1.5-internal mixed mode)
# An error report file with more information is saved as hs_err_pid31587.log
#
# If you would like to submit a bug report, please visit:
# http://java.sun.com/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi
#
Abort (core dumped)

======================================================================

(63) Rei : java_g -mx1899M -version
# To suppress the following error report, specify this argument
# after -XX: or in .hotspotrc: SuppressErrorAt=/virtualspace.cpp:54]
#
# An unexpected error has been detected by HotSpot Virtual Machine:
#
# Internal Error (/net/jpsesvr/export/jpse/ws/patc/tiger/gc_base/src/share/vm/runtime/virtualspace.cpp, 54), pid=31588, tid=1024
#
# Java VM: Java HotSpot(TM) Server VM (1.5-internal-debug mixed mode)
#
# Error: os::release_memory failed
# An error report file with more information is saved as hs_err_pid31588.log
#
# If you would like to submit a bug report, please visit:
# http://java.sun.com/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi
#
Current thread is 1024
Dumping core ...
Abort (core dumped)
======================================================================