--- a/src/hotspot/os/linux/os_linux.cpp	Wed Mar 28 16:39:32 2018 +0200
+++ b/src/hotspot/os/linux/os_linux.cpp	Wed Mar 28 12:04:33 2018 -0400
@@ -1644,10 +1644,7 @@
         //
         // Dynamic loader will make all stacks executable after
         // this function returns, and will not do that again.
-#ifdef ASSERT
-        ThreadsListHandle tlh;
-        assert(tlh.length() == 0, "no Java threads should exist yet.");
-#endif
+        assert(Threads::number_of_threads() == 0, "no Java threads should exist yet.");
       } else {
         warning("You have loaded library %s which might have disabled stack guard. "
                 "The VM will try to fix the stack guard now.\n"