I think this question belongs in linux newbie
> Is there a kernel compile option to disable core dumps ? I am not
> that interested to do much debugging using cores, not to mention that my gdb
> complains when I try to load a core file ...
You may have an older gdb that can't load ELF core dumps. To disable coredumps
use the limit command in the shell. Stick it /etc/profile to make it general