starting >=2.6.36 FATAL: Setup length exceeds 31 maximum; kernel setup will overwrite boot loader

Fatal: Setup length exceeds 31 maximum; kernel setup will overwrite boot loader

Starting with 2.6.36, I started getting the above message.

It didn't seem what options I pruned out of the kernel ipv6 support, iptables support, any thing I could think of that would be a 'large chunk of space', nothing would make it "fit" the way 2.6.35 did.

I didn't turn on options from options from 2.6.35 -> 2.6.36, but did turn on things like BIOS blk throttling which seemed low cost. I set the lower BIOS reserved amount to 4K, which seemed to be the default under the old system (?), though this system hasn't ever been tested w/standby or hibernate so don't know if this is a correct setting, but is unlikely relevant.

So where did this extra length come from?

I *hoped* it was a fluke w/26.36, that would disappear in 26.37...but nep. In searching for causes I saw one message pointing to the XEN subsystem, but I made sure to remove that on both setups and that made no difference.

So what's caused the sudden bump and how do I get around it?

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FWIW, the above problem was fixed, recently in the latest release of LILO, V23.2, which one can download from:
https://alioth.debian.org/frs/?group_id=100507&release_id=1670

I'd seen messages around the net asking about this problem, so thought I'd post the solution here in case anyone read this list, or might later be searching for solution.