Maybe this is a clue to the preceived instability of XF4.2?

(gdb) bt
#0  0x4824b2a7 in abort () from /usr/lib/libc.so.12
#1  0x806cf4d in ddxGiveUp ()
#2  0x806cfe6 in AbortDDX ()
#3  0x80d402c in AbortServer ()
#4  0x80d531d in FatalError ()
#5  0x807ef51 in xf86SigHandler ()
#6  0xbfbfdfdc in ?? ()
#7  0x81fe471 in ?? ()
#8  0x80e1080 in FontFileOpenFont ()
#9  0x80cbfe2 in doOpenFont ()
#10 0x80cc357 in OpenFont ()
#11 0x80b1277 in ProcOpenFont ()
#12 0x80afdd9 in Dispatch ()
#13 0x80bfd51 in main ()
#14 0x806bbb0 in ___start ()

I just hit return in netscape - never thought opening a font would be the
cause of XFree to core dump..

Cheers,

Patrick