Please describe the problem in detail, with the following information (if
applicable)
Host OS: OS X
SDK tools version (available in the "About" section of the 'android' tool
UI): 23.0.2
Android Studio version: 0.8.9

STEPS TO REPRODUCE:
1. Build application requiring multiple dex files. Used example found here: https://github.com/casidiablo/multidex/blob/publishing/README.md
2. Observe app runs correctly on 4.x device.
3. Observe app crashes upon installation on gingerbread device.

EXPECTED RESULTS:
Multidex application runs on gingerbread device.

OBSERVED RESULTS:
Application causes dalvik crash on gingerbread devices:
E/dalvikvm( 2404): LinearAlloc exceeded capacity (8388608), last=6888
E/dalvikvm( 2404): VM aborting
F/libc ( 2404): Fatal signal 11 (SIGSEGV) at 0xdeadd00d (code=1)
...

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:
I've seen mentions but no definitive evidence that GB devices cannot load dex files over 5Gb. As an experiment I patched dx to produce smaller dex files (see attachement). Building with the modified dx program produced an APK with smaller (no larger than 3Mb) dex files and installation errors did not occur on gb devices.

Due to this I suspect that dx needs to either by default generate smaller dex files to ensure compatibility with gb devices or be tunable in the build configuration for app producers wishing to maintain compatibility with gb.