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Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!news.Hawaii.Edu!ames!haven.umd.edu!darwin.sura.net!udel!sbcs.sunysb.edu!stark.UUCP!gene From: gene@cs.sunysb.edu!stark (Gene Stark) Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.questions Subject: Re: KERNEL PANIC ANYONE Date: 14 Jul 93 07:46:59 Organization: Gene Stark's home system Lines: 21 Message-ID: <GENE.93Jul14074659@stark.uucp> References: <22222@durer.cme.nist.gov> <1993Jul12.180752.29982@prepress.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: stark.uucp In-reply-to: costa@benton.prepress.com's message of 12 Jul 93 18:07:52 GMT In article <1993Jul12.180752.29982@prepress.com> costa@benton.prepress.com (Bob Costa) writes: > I found that kernels in excess of 600k tend to make my system panic. Maybe people don't know this. I didn't, and it sure ruined one of my weekends. When you build a kernel, it is important to use "nm" to make sure that _end has been assigned an address strictly less than 0xFE090000. If not, then some of your BSS area will be overlapping the bootstrap loader. Since the kernel does not seem to be smart enough to zero out the overlapping area before commencing operations, you will get panics and other strange system behavior that is *very* difficult to debug, due to the violation of the assumption that C programs have their BSS zeroed before they are started. Maybe this should be in the FAQ. It would be even better if the system "did the right thing", but I think the problem is it's a little complicated to figure out how/when it is safe to zero the bootstrap area. - Gene Stark -- stark@cs.sunysb.edu