Actually I don't know if somebody will get this email, but I'll try this 
anyway. I couldn't find a place to report this bug

Try to ./configure  php-5.2.8 on a reiserfs partition formated with
'mkreiserfs -b 1024' and mounted as 'notai,noatime'.

Doing this as root will *hang* the system on this configure step:

"checking whether pwrite works..."

Watch the load average grow.

Attached is what I was able to catch. I also had similar problems after 
rebooting withoud doing anything.

On an ext3 partition or a reiserfs partition formated with a 4096 block 
size and it worked fine.

Regards