Why do virtual memory addresses for linux binaries start at 0x8048000?
From the Linkers and loaders book:
On 386 systems, the text base address is 0x08048000, which permits a reasonably large stack below the text while still staying above address 0x08000000, permitting most programs to use a single second-level page table. (Recall that on the 386, each second-level table maps 0x00400000 addresses.)