Created attachment 12803 [details]
Patch implementing described fix

bfd_generic_define_common_symbol does not calculate the correct alignment for targets with more than 1 octet per byte if alignment power is less than 1.

3103: linker.c
alignment = bfd_octets_per_byte (output_bfd, section) << power_of_two;

e.g. 
A target has 16-bit bytes and an alignment of 1 byte (2 octets). 

A common variable may be defined as .comm variable,1,1

bfd_log2(1) will calculate alignment_power == 0

Mathematically 2 ** 0 == 1 which would be correct but the above statement will evaluate to 2.

Instead the statement should check for a power_of_two == 0 condition i.e.
alignment = power_of_two ? bfd_octets_per_byte (output_bfd, section) << power_of_two : 1;