Issue 1:
On my dual-core 32-bit ubuntu test machine, the tests fail to start.

~/julia$ make test
JULIA test/all

Setting it to single core, the linalg1 test fails:

~/julia$ make test
JULIA test/all
* linalg1
exception on 1: ERROR: assertion failed: |:(det(capd)) - :(det(apd))| <= 0.002384185791015625
:(det(capd)) = 1.626428240984628e9
:(det(apd)) = 1.6264282410016303e9
difference = 0.017002344131469727 > 0.002384185791015625
in error at error.jl:22
in test_approx_eq at test.jl:68
in anonymous at no file:54
in runtests at /home/jameson/julia/test/testdefs.jl:5
in anonymous at multi.jl:629
in run_work_thunk at multi.jl:590
in remotecall_fetch at multi.jl:663
in remotecall_fetch at multi.jl:678
in anonymous at task.jl:1320
while loading linalg1.jl, in expression starting on line 23
ERROR: assertion failed: |:(det(capd)) - :(det(apd))| <= 0.002384185791015625
:(det(capd)) = 1.626428240984628e9
:(det(apd)) = 1.6264282410016303e9
difference = 0.017002344131469727 > 0.002384185791015625
in error at error.jl:22
in test_approx_eq at test.jl:68
in anonymous at no file:54
in runtests at /home/jameson/julia/test/testdefs.jl:5
in anonymous at multi.jl:629
in run_work_thunk at multi.jl:590
in remotecall_fetch at multi.jl:663
in remotecall_fetch at multi.jl:678
in anonymous at task.jl:1320
while loading linalg1.jl, in expression starting on line 23
while loading /home/jameson/julia/test/runtests.jl, in expression starting on line 32

(p.s. is this linalg1 test supposed to take several hundred megabytes of RAM? I've only assigned my VM 1GB)

Issue 2:
This has been failing for at least a day:

JULIA test/linalg
* linalg
exception on 1: ERROR: assertion failed: |b - :(*(apd,\(capd,b)))| <= 1.4432899320127035e-12
b = 5 1
3 5
5 3
2 1
4 1
1 5
3 5
2 3
2 5
1 2

:(*(apd,\(capd,b))) = 4.999999999999602 1.0000000000022737
2.9999999999998863 4.999999999999545
4.999999999999943 3.0000000000004547
1.9999999999999432 1.0000000000015916
4.000000000000114 1.0000000000020464
1.0000000000002274 4.999999999998636
3 5.000000000001592
2.0000000000000853 3.0000000000002274
2.0000000000001137 4.999999999999318
1.0000000000000568 2.000000000001819

difference = 2.2737367544323206e-12 > 1.4432899320127035e-12
in error at error.jl:22
in test_approx_eq at test.jl:68
in anonymous at no file:39
in runtests at /Users/stefan/projects/julia.alt/test/testdefs.jl:5
in anonymous at multi.jl:613
in run_work_thunk at multi.jl:575
in remotecall_fetch at multi.jl:647
in remotecall_fetch at multi.jl:662
in anonymous at multi.jl:1382
while loading linalg.jl, in expression starting on line 23
ERROR: assertion failed: |b - :(*(apd,\(capd,b)))| <= 1.4432899320127035e-12
b = 5 1
3 5
5 3
2 1
4 1
1 5
3 5
2 3
2 5
1 2

:(*(apd,\(capd,b))) = 4.999999999999602 1.0000000000022737
2.9999999999998863 4.999999999999545
4.999999999999943 3.0000000000004547
1.9999999999999432 1.0000000000015916
4.000000000000114 1.0000000000020464
1.0000000000002274 4.999999999998636
3 5.000000000001592
2.0000000000000853 3.0000000000002274
2.0000000000001137 4.999999999999318
1.0000000000000568 2.000000000001819

difference = 2.2737367544323206e-12 > 1.4432899320127035e-12
in error at error.jl:22
in test_approx_eq at test.jl:68
in anonymous at no file:39
in runtests at /Users/stefan/projects/julia.alt/test/testdefs.jl:5
in anonymous at multi.jl:613
in run_work_thunk at multi.jl:575
in remotecall_fetch at multi.jl:647
in remotecall_fetch at multi.jl:662
in anonymous at multi.jl:1382
while loading linalg.jl, in expression starting on line 23
while loading /Users/stefan/projects/julia.alt/test/runtests.jl, in expression starting on line 23

make[1]: *** [linalg] Error 1
make: *** [test-linalg] Error 2

cc: @jiahao, @andreasnoackjensen – did you guys monkey around with these tests some time on Friday or yesterday?

Julia Version 0.3.0-prerelease+1362
Commit d0aa799* (2014-02-02 17:49 UTC)
Platform Info:
System: Darwin (x86_64-apple-darwin13.0.0)
CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-3740QM CPU @ 2.70GHz
WORD_SIZE: 64
BLAS: libopenblas (USE64BITINT DYNAMIC_ARCH NO_AFFINITY)
LAPACK: libopenblas
LIBM: libopenlibm