I was testing my r5k, 256 Mb ram SGI O2 again after some inactivity, and found what latest kernel (from LMO git, up to commit 9368a0777aa3eaab13dcbd7038041df54885dc32 MIPS: Fix __vmalloc() etc. on MIPS for non-GPL modules ) compiled with my usual kernel toolchain (binutils-2.19.1/gcc 4.3.3) will lock up/hang very early, even before clearing screen. Git bisect point me at some bootmem changes, last working commit for me is commit a626b46e17d0762d664ce471d40bc506b6e721ab Merge: c1dcb4b dce46a0 Author: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Date: Wed Mar 3 08:15:05 2010 -0800 Merge branch 'x86-bootmem-for-linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/tip/linux-2.6-tip and bad one: commit fb7b096d949fa852442ed9d8f982bce526ccfe7e Merge: a626b46 fad5399 Author: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Date: Wed Mar 3 08:15:37 2010 -0800 Merge branch 'x86-apic-for-linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/tip/linux-2.6-tip Sorry for annoy you all on IRC, i'll try to add more interesting details about this hang as fast as my O2 finished some compile job i have running on it currently