It actually appears I was unfair to MySQL, after scouring the net I have discovered that its probably a glibc problem. I won't explain that one, you either know what I mean or you don't :-)

Anyway, I've installed a new version of MySQL which has built-in glibc routines which reportedly will fix the problem. However, there's also issues with Linux 2.4.3 (as I suspected) which upgrading to the latest Linux kernel should fix.

I shall be trying that this evening.

More news as we know it.

Steve.