Re: Latest git oopses during boot

[Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>]

On Thu, 7 Feb 2008, Harald Arnesen wrote:
> 
> I'll try applying the patch to a freshly downloaded git-tree.

Ok, good.

> Shall I try another compiler? I have at least these two:
> 
> gcc version 3.4.6 (Ubuntu 3.4.6-6ubuntu2)
> gcc version 4.1.3 20070929 (prerelease) (Ubuntu 4.1.2-16ubuntu2)

I would suggest a patch mis-application problem first (or possibly even 
the patch itself being broken - I simply didn't look very closely at the 
patch, but it *looked* ok).

If it's a compiler bug, it's a pretty big one, and quite frankly, I doubt 
it. Compiler bugs do happen, but they are pretty rare, and they tend to 
have more subtle effects than the one you see. 

However:

> in addition to the self-compiled 4.2.3 I used for the tests.

4.2.3? Really? That's pretty damn recent, and so almost totally untested. 
That does make a compiler bug at least more likely.

So yes, if you already have other compilers installed, you should try 
them. If it really is a compiler bug, it's a really bad one, and you would 
want to let the gcc people know.

Still, I'd double-check that the

	asc_dvc_varp->overrun_buf = kzalloc(ASC_OVERRUN_BSIZE, GFP_KERNEL);

line was added properly first. You should see it way after the point where 
it did 

	asc_dvc_varp = &boardp->dvc_var.asc_dvc_var;

to initialize it (and both statements should be inside a

	if (ASC_NARROW_BOARD(boardp)) {

conditional - please check that the source code looks sane too).

			Linus