bigcore.exp on 64-bit systems

[Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>]

I'm trying to run the testsuite on a 64-bit machine that identifies
itself thusly:

    Linux fencepost 2.6.16.29-xen #1 SMP Wed Dec 6 07:32:36 EST 2006 x86_64 GNU/Linux

On this machine, bigcore.exp is a pest: it runs for a very long time,
produces a humongous core file (so large that I expect the sysadmins
to send me angry emails), and eventually fails (or so it seems).
Here's what gdb.sum says about it:

    Running ../.././gdb/testsuite/gdb.base/bigcore.exp ...
    PASS: gdb.base/bigcore.exp: set print sevenbit-strings; bigcore
    PASS: gdb.base/bigcore.exp: set width 0; bigcore
    PASS: gdb.base/bigcore.exp: tbreak 264
    PASS: gdb.base/bigcore.exp: continue
    PASS: gdb.base/bigcore.exp: next
    PASS: gdb.base/bigcore.exp: extract next heap (stop at 50)
    PASS: gdb.base/bigcore.exp: extract prev heap (stop at 50)
    PASS: gdb.base/bigcore.exp: save heap size
    PASS: gdb.base/bigcore.exp: grab pid
    FAIL: gdb.base/bigcore.exp: signal SIGABRT (timeout)
    FAIL: gdb.base/bigcore.exp: check core size (timeout)
    UNTESTED: gdb.base/bigcore.exp: check core size (system does not support large corefiles)

Is this normal?  What is the meaning of SIGABRT (timeout), and what,
if anything, should I do about the last line?

TIA