Just to confirm, I reinstalled FPC 1.9.8 on Linux last night and as mentioned everything compiles and and I don't get an AV on startup. It doesn't work perfectly, but definately does not AV on startup.

This has been using the Delphi compatability mode ( -Sd ) all along. What are other developer's experiences with using the normal FreePascal ( objfpc I think it's called ) mode.