Re: devfs breakage in 2.4.0 release

[Adam J. Richter]

	On my Sony PictureBook PCG-C1VN, 2.4.0 hangs in the boot
process while 2.4.0-prerelease boots just fine.  At first I thought
the problem was devfs-related, but skipping devfsd just caused the
hang to occur a little later, this time in ifconfig.  The kernel
call trace looked something like this:

	neigh_ifdown
	sys_ioctl
	sock_ioctl
	[some addresses in modules]
	stext_lock
	__down_failed
	__down

	What surprised me more was that attempting to remount the
root filesystem for writing just before this (to record the module
kernel symbols) caused a kenel BUG() in slab.c:1542 becuase kmalloc
was being called with a huge negative number.

	I know I could run ksymoops to get this trace, but I now
think the cause of the problem probably happens much earlier than
the symptoms.  So, I trying backing out different 2.4.0 changes.
So far, I can tell you that reverting the linux/mm subdirectory to
its 2.4.0-prerelease contents had no effect.  I will let you know
if I diagnose or fix the problem, as I think you may be experiencing
the same problem.

Adam J. Richter     __     ______________   4880 Stevens Creek Blvd, Suite 104
[e-mail]     \ /                  San Jose, California 95129-1034
[phone]         | g g d r a s i l   United States of America
fax [phone]      "Free Software For The Rest Of Us."