Perhaps I'm not interpreting something happening earlier, but `make test' here  only seems to run a short time but doesn't actually finish.  It appears not to be using any cpu, or waiting for input, so I'm not sure what's happening.
...
test_grammar
test_opcodes
test_dict
test_builtin
test_exceptions
test_types
test_unittest
test_doctest
test_doctest2
test_py3kwarn
test_py3kwarn skipped -- test.test_py3kwarn must be run with the -3 flag
test_MimeWriter
test_SimpleHTTPServer
test_StringIO
test___all__
test test___all__ failed -- Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/local/src/Python-2.6.8rc2/Lib/test/test___all__.py", line 103, in test_all
    self.check_all(modname)
  File "/usr/local/src/Python-2.6.8rc2/Lib/test/test___all__.py", line 39, in check_all
    modname, e.__class__.__name__, e))

AssertionError: __all__ failure in distutils.command: ImportError: No module named _sha256

test___future__
test__locale
test_abc
test_abstract_numbers
test_aepack
test_aepack skipped -- No module named aepack
test_aifc
test_al
test_al skipped -- No module named al
test_anydbm
test_applesingle
test_applesingle skipped -- No module named macostools
test_array
test_ast
test_asynchat
test test_asynchat failed -- multiple errors occurred; run in verbose mode for details
test_asyncore
test test_asyncore failed -- multiple errors occurred; run in verbose mode for details
test_atexit
test_audioop
test_augassign
test_base64
test_bastion
test_bigaddrspace
test_bigmem
test_binascii
test_binhex
test_binop
test_bisect
test_bool
test_bsddb
test_bsddb skipped -- No module named _bsddb
test_bsddb185
test_bsddb185 skipped -- No module named bsddb185
test_bsddb3
test_bsddb3 skipped -- No module named _bsddb
test_buffer
test_bufio
test_bytes
test_bz2
test_bz2 skipped -- No module named bz2
test_calendar
test_call
test_capi

To quote Martin from an older issue: "Python on HP-UX has never really worked well, but it has worked in some fashion for a long time".  IA64 probably introduces a whole slew of new issues.  If you can work through them and suggest patches that would be great.  If you are motivated to do this, you might want to sign up for the python core-mentorship list, where you can ask questions about how things work and get advice on fixing problems.

Oh, and python2.6 is in security-fix only mode, so any fixes would only go into go into 2.7 and later.  Have you gotten as far as trying to reproduce this on 2.7?

Oh, wait, I see you are testing the security RC.  Is this a new problem, or does it also occur with the previous released version of 2.6?

On Sun, Apr 08, 2012 at 02:13:39AM +0000, R. David Murray wrote:
> 
> R. David Murray <rdmurray@bitdance.com> added the comment:
> 
> Oh, wait, I see you are testing the security RC.  Is this a new problem, or does it also occur with the previous released version of 2.6?

Yes... I'm not on that box right now, but from what I recall 2.6.7 and
2.7.2 did the same thing.  But seems as though the 2.7.3 rc has regressed.

Can you clarify?  In what sense has the 2.7.3 rc regressed?

On Sun, Apr 08, 2012 at 04:16:39PM +0000, R. David Murray wrote:
> 
> R. David Murray <rdmurray@bitdance.com> added the comment:
> 
> Can you clarify?  In what sense has the 2.7.3 rc regressed?

Shouldn't have left that out -- I was referring to the crash in that
other bug I opened.  I don't think that was happening in 2.7.2, but I
should really confirm before spouting off too loudly.

I'm not on that network today, so let me get back to you tomorrow.

Apparently my memory was faulty the other day... 2.7.2 does crash the same way as Python-2.7.3rc2 on this box.  I opened a new bug report for that, so will close this one. I'll also sign up for core-mentorship as you suggest, and see what I can do to help.