It gives "!samegp reloc against symbol without .prologue", but using 2.16 
binutils not.

Here is sample program:
----------------//////////////--------
long longval () { return (long) (sizeof (int)); }
unsigned long ulongval () { return (long) (sizeof (int)); }
int main ()
{
  long i = longval ();
  return 0;
}
----------------////////----------------------


Output:
# gcc -v conftest.c
Using built-in specs.
Target: alpha-redhat-linux
Configured 
with: ../configure --prefix=/usr --mandir=/usr/share/man --infodir=/usr/share/info --enable-shared --enable-threads=posix --enable-checking=release --with-system-zlib --enable-__cxa_atexit --disable-libunwind-exceptions --enable-libgcj-multifile --enable-languages=c,c++,objc,obj-c++,java,fortran --enable-java-awt=gtk --disable-dssi --with-java-home=/usr/lib/jvm/java-1.4.2-gcj-1.4.2.0/jre --with-long-double-128 --host=alpha-redhat-linux
Thread model: posix
gcc version 4.1.0 20060228 (Red Hat 4.1.0-1)
 /usr/libexec/gcc/alpha-redhat-linux/4.1.0/cc1 -quiet -v 
conftest.c -quiet -dumpbase conftest.c -auxbase 
conftest -version -o /tmp/ccrEun0F.s
ignoring nonexistent 
directory "/usr/lib/gcc/alpha-redhat-linux/4.1.0/../../../../alpha-redhat-linux/include"
#include "..." search starts here:
#include <...> search starts here:
 /usr/local/include
 /usr/lib/gcc/alpha-redhat-linux/4.1.0/include
 /usr/include
End of search list.
GNU C version 4.1.0 20060228 (Red Hat 4.1.0-1) (alpha-redhat-linux)
        compiled by GNU C version 4.1.0 20060228 (Red Hat 4.1.0-1).
GGC heuristics: --param ggc-min-expand=46 --param ggc-min-heapsize=31269
Compiler executable checksum: 6e0ce0c6bed7a40ac43c080bacb332d6
 as -no-mdebug -o /tmp/ccevgZqf.o /tmp/ccrEun0F.s
 /usr/libexec/gcc/alpha-redhat-linux/4.1.0/collect2 --eh-frame-hdr -m 
elf64alpha -O1 -dynamic-linker /lib/ld-linux.so.2 /usr/lib/gcc/alpha-redhat-linux/4.1.0/../../../crt1.o /usr/lib/gcc/alpha-redhat-linux/4.1.0/../../../crti.o /usr/lib/gcc/alpha-redhat-linux/4.1.0/crtbegin.o -L/usr/lib/gcc/alpha-redhat-linux/4.1.0 -L/usr/lib/gcc/alpha-redhat-linux/4.1.0 -L/usr/lib/gcc/alpha-redhat-linux/4.1.0/../../.. /tmp/ccevgZqf.o -lgcc --as-needed -lgcc_s --no-as-needed -lc -lgcc --as-needed -lgcc_s --no-as-needed /usr/lib/gcc/alpha-redhat-linux/4.1.0/crtend.o /usr/lib/gcc/alpha-redhat-linux/4.1.0/../../../crtn.o
/usr/bin/ld: /tmp/ccevgZqf.o: !samegp reloc against symbol without .prologue: 
longval
/usr/bin/ld: final link failed: Nonrepresentable section on output
collect2: ld returned 1 exit status

# rpm -q gcc binutils glibc
gcc-4.1.0-1
binutils-2.17.50.0.6-2
glibc-2.4-4axp

using older binutils 2.16 works.