I tried to debug another problem and turned on most debug options for memory. The resulting kernel failed to boot. Bisecting the configurations led to CONFIG_DEBUG_VIRTUAL - if I turned it on in addition to some other debug options, the machine crashed with kernel BUG at arch/x86/mm/physaddr.c:79! Screenshot at http://kodu.ut.ee/~mroos/debug_virtual-boot-hang-1.jpg The machine was Athlon XP with VIA KT600 chipset and 2G RAM. -- Meelis Roos <mroos@xxxxxxxx>