With today's git host kernel I can no longer boot my Ubuntu virtual
machine - udevd, modprobe etc. just die with glibc detecting realloc()
errors (invalid next size) and I am dropped to initramfs prompt.

Going back to the distro kernel 2.6.26 makes the same VM work again.

Here is the command line -

kvm -m 2048m -drive file=ubuntu.img,if=virtio,boot=on -net
nic,model=virtio -net user -cdrom xubuntu-8.10-rc-desktop-i386.iso
-boot c -redir tcp:2222::22

$ kvm
QEMU PC emulator version 0.9.1 (kvm-72), Copyright (c) 2003-2008 Fabrice Bellard
usage: qemu [options] [disk_image]

Parag