Ok, I got some progress (i think). I got the 2.6.10 kernel, and compiled it and replaced the old one with it. With and without patching the kernel and the iptables source i get the same thing: "Making dependencies, please wait..." and it stays there. CPU usage is 100%, with make forking to cpp0 and cc processes all the time - at least that's what i got from what TOP shows. I ran STRACE on this - it's a loooong sequence of things i don't understand but at least i know it doesn't hang - ot loops continuously doing something. Now - I'm doing this on a Pentium II 400mhz machine with 128RAM and 1GB swap. The ram usage is VERY low when doing this. I don't know how much the process should take but I left it yesterday for hours and it was still doing the same thing. A kernel compile, for example, takes it like 1/2 an hour. Oh - and iptables 1.3.0 does the same thing - "making dependencies, please wait... " - i thought it might do some difference - it didn't. So i'm stuck at this point. Apparently i did something to the system, but i can't figure out what. I haven't been changing any important things like compilers and libraries and the such, that's for sure. I'm kind of new to all this but I figure I'm way too stuck on this one. Any further clues are highly appreciated.
