I kept getting boot failures in the slab allocator. The failure goes away if one is setting CONFIG_FRAME_POINTER. Seems that CONFIG_DEBUG_SLAB implies the use of __buildin_return_address() which needs the framepointer.
Crash with 2.6.15-rc3-mm1: Unable to handle kernel NULL pointer dereference at virtual address 00000004 printing eip: c013bebf *pde = 00000000 Oops: 0000 [#1] last sysfs file: Modules linked in: CPU: 0 EIP: 0060:[<c013bebf>] Not tainted VLI EFLAGS: 00010292 (2.6.13-rc5-mm1) EIP is at kmem_cache_alloc+0x16f/0x1c0 eax: 00000000 ebx: 00000000 ecx: 00000000 edx: c17de13c esi: c17df080 edi: c17de13c ebp: c0377f6c esp: c0377f48 ds: 007b es: 007b ss: 0068 Process swapper (pid: 0, threadinfo=c0376000 task=c0329b80) Stack: c0377f7c 00000004 fffffffc 0000001c c013af6e 800000d0 0000002e 00000000 c17df15c c17df140 c013af6e 00052c00 c0377f98 c17df15c 00000025 ffffffff fffffffc 00000004 00000054 c02e5551 00000014 ffffffc0 0000001c 00000040 Call Trace: [<c013af6e>] kmem_cache_create+0x59e/0x7b0 [<c013af6e>] kmem_cache_create+0x59e/0x7b0 [<c03826d1>] kmem_cache_init+0x1d1/0x380 [<c03786dd>] start_kernel+0xcd/0x150 [<c0378340>] unknown_bootoption+0x0/0x1a0 Code: 5a 75 8b eb ca 89 fa 89 f0 e8 8e e0 ff ff 8b 55 ec 89 10 89 fa 8b 45 00 8b 58 04 89 f0 e8 5a e0 ff ff 89 fa 89 18 8b 45 00 8b 00 <8b> 58 04 89 f0 e8 27 e0 ff ff 89 18 8b 46 18 e9 d7 fe ff ff 89 <0>Kernel panic - not syncing: Attempted to kill the idle task! Signed-off-by: Christoph Lameter <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Index: linux-2.6.13-rc5-mm1/lib/Kconfig.debug =================================================================== --- linux-2.6.13-rc5-mm1.orig/lib/Kconfig.debug 2005-08-08 11:02:36.000000000 -0700 +++ linux-2.6.13-rc5-mm1/lib/Kconfig.debug 2005-08-08 13:43:17.000000000 -0700 @@ -79,7 +79,7 @@ config DEBUG_SLAB bool "Debug memory allocations" - depends on DEBUG_KERNEL + depends on DEBUG_KERNEL && FRAME_POINTER help Say Y here to have the kernel do limited verification on memory allocation as well as poisoning memory on free to catch use of freed - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/