work around linux bug in readlink syscall with zero buffer size

linux fails with EINVAL when a zero buffer size is passed to the
syscall. this is non-conforming because POSIX already defines EINVAL
with a significantly different meaning: the target is not a symlink.

since the request is semantically valid, patch it up by using a dummy
buffer of length one, and truncating the return value to zero if it
succeeds.