MySQL Reference Manual for version .

Since it is very hard to now why something crashing please do one of the following things.

First try to check if thigs that work for other crash for you:

Have you tried the benchmarks? This should test MySQL rather well. You can also add code that simulates your application!
Try also fork_test.pl and fork2_test.pl
Check the reference manual about debugging mysqld.
Recompile MySQL with the --with-debug switch to configure. This will include a safe memory allocator that can find some errors. This also gives a lot of output about what is happening.
Use mysqld --log and try to find if it some specific query that kills it. 95% of all bugs is related to some specific query!
Have you applied the latest patches for your Operating System ?
Use --skip-locking
Have you tried 'mysqladmin proc' when it 'dies' ?
Put in some window the following command to output statistics: mysqladmin -i 5 status
1. Start mysqld with gdb (or another debugger).
2. Run your test scripts.
3. Do back (or the backtrace command in your debugger) when mysqld core dumps.
Try to simulate your application with a perl script to force MySQL to crash/misbehave.
Or send a normal bug report. See section I think I have found a bug. What information do you need to help me?. But be even more detailed than normally. Since MySQL works for a lot of people it may that the crash comes from something that only exists on your computer. For example, a system library error.