Maybe I have something better than a gdb trace: it now also happens in my own source code, the moment I open an opendialog. The message looks like this:
Project taxes raised exception class 'External: SIGSEGV'. At address B7173926.
I have traced it to this function in 'commondialog.inc'. It happens inside the ' Application.HandleMessage';
Code is at the bottom of this message.
An earlier contributor had suggested, that the problem might be between my filing system and Lazarus.
Ubuntu says ext3/ext4, but then, I also have an external 2T drive mounted. Ubuntu doesn't say anything about that guy's filing system, but I believe it is NTFS, since it has been hooked to a Windows machine before. I am going to disconnect that drive and see what happens.
After that, it will be gdb resp. fpcup...
Thanks a lot for your advice.

And good night - kriz
function TCommonDialog.DoExecute : boolean;
var
CanClose: boolean;
begin
FCanCloseCalled := False;
if Assigned(FOnShow) then
FOnShow(Self);
TWSCommonDialogClass(WidgetSetClass).ShowModal(Self);
// can close was called from widgetset loop
if not FCanCloseCalled then
begin
repeat
if (FUserChoice <> mrNone) and (Handle<>0) then
begin
CanClose := True;
DoCanClose(CanClose);
if not CanClose then
FUserChoice:=mrNone;
end;
if FUserChoice <> mrNone then
break;
{ win32 widgetset dialogs use their own message loop,
so only FUserChoice may have been set already }
Application.HandleMessage;
until false;
end;
Result := (FUserChoice = mrOk);
end;