But ok, I resolved the boost dependency... but now it can't compile the db because suse 11.3 has berkeley 4.5 and bitcoin requires 4.8, so thats the segmentation fault right there I guess?
So is it possible to fix this?
If you're using a direct git clone rather than a release tarball, you need to run ./autogen.sh first to generate ./configure, same as nearly every other autotools setup in existence.
Yes, you can compile and install berkeley 4.8 yourself if your distro doesn't provide a package.
If you run bitcoin in a gdb session you should be able to get a backtrace that tells you where the segfault is occurring. I believe the binaries from bitcoin.org have all the dependencies compiled in, so I don't think the berkeley db version is your issue.