Running 2.48rc on my system segfaults when starting the game engine, only on the release, not for my own builds.

Setting the SDL video driver to dummy prevents the crash, this is recommended in the SDL docs if your not using the video driver.

source/creator/creator.c

@@ -538,6 +538,7 @@ int main(int argc, char **argv)
 		BLI_where_is_temp( btempdir, 1 ); /* call after loading the .B.blend so we can read U.tempdir */
 
 #ifndef DISABLE_SDL
+		setenv("SDL_VIDEODRIVER", "dummy", 1); /* initializing the video driver can cause crashes on some systems - Campbell */
 #ifdef __linux__
 		/* On linux the default SDL driver dma often would not play
 		 * use alsa if none is set */

source/gameengine/PyDoc/KX_GameObject.py

@@ -159,7 +159,7 @@ class KX_GameObject: # (SCA_IObject)
 		@param orn: a rotation matrix specifying the new rotation.
 		@note: When using this matrix with Blender.Mathutils.Matrix() types, it will need to be transposed.
 		"""
-	def alignAxisToVect(vect, axis):
+	def alignAxisToVect(vect, axis, factor):
 		"""
 		Aligns any of the game object's axis along the given vector.
 		
@@ -170,6 +170,8 @@ class KX_GameObject: # (SCA_IObject)
 					- 0: X axis
 					- 1: Y axis
 					- 2: Z axis (default) 
+		@type factor: float
+		@param factor: Only rotate a feaction of the distance to the target vector (0.0 - 1.0)
 		"""
 	def getAxisVect(vect):
 		"""