Working kernels can be built in Maverick with any one of these: 1. Disabled CONFIG_RELOCATABLE. That makes the problem go away, and it makes a bunch of build warnings go away too (they indicate the problem, and they really should cause the build to fail, but they just warn).
2. Use an older Binutils linker. The problem is caused by a change in the behaviour of linker build scripts in a particular corner case, which is hit by the x86 Linux linker script, but only affects CONFIG_RELOCATABLE=y. 3. Judging by the patch comments below, use a newer Binutils linker. I haven't tried this. 4. Take a look at mainline kernel commits. For me a patch similar to the older one below fixed booting with Maverick built kernels on *32-bit* x86. The "reported boot failures" were x86_64 only as far as I can tell, so this might not help with x86_64. 6b35eb9ddcddde7b510726de03fae071178f1ec4 Date: Wed Jan 19 10:09:42 2011 +0100 Revert "x86: Make relocatable kernel work with new binutils" This reverts commit 86b1e8dd83cb ("x86: Make relocatable kernel work with new binutils"). Markus Trippelsdorf reported a boot failure caused by this patch. The real solution to the original patch will likely involve an arch-generic solution to define an overlaid jiffies_64 and jiffies variables. Until that's done and tested on all architectures revert this commit to solve the regression. which reverts the Maverick build fix you are looking for.... 86b1e8dd83cbb0fcbf3d61d2b461df8be1f528cf Date: Tue Jan 18 08:57:49 2011 +0800 x86: Make relocatable kernel work with new binutils The CONFIG_RELOCATABLE=y option is broken with new binutils, which will make boot panic. According to Lu Hongjiu, the affected binutils are from 2.20.51.0.12 to 2.21.51.0.3, which are release since Oct 22 this year. At least ubuntu 10.10 is using such binutils. See: http://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=12327 The reason of the boot panic is that we have 'jiffies = jiffies_64;' in vmlinux.lds.S. The jiffies isn't in any section. In kernel build, there is warning saying jiffies is an absolute address and can't be relocatable. At runtime, jiffies will have virtual address 0. 5. Enjoy the thread at http://www.gossamer- threads.com/lists/linux/kernel/1328685 ** Bug watch added: Sourceware.org Bugzilla #12327 http://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=12327 -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/673236 Title: maverick toolchain producing unbootable (hanging) kernels -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs