2.4.x kernels hang before uncompressing
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We have a Tri-M PC-104 system with a Cyrix ZF486 processor that (in
addition to being painfully slow building kernels) refuses to boot any 2.4.x kernels.
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It DOES appear to finish loading, because it outputs a linefeed after the line of dots in 'Loading linux....'
I experienced a similar problem with another National Geode board and traced the problem back to the place where the kernel reads the BIOS memory map. I fixed it by disabling the newer BIOS memory routines by adding '#define STANDARD_MEMORY_BIOS_CALL' to linux/arch/i386/boot/setup.S. Alternatively try adding it to the flags in linux/arch/boot/Makefile, since the compressed/misc.c has similar #ifdef's.
If that fails try upgrading the BIOS or check out the ZFLinux web site
http://www.zfmicro.com/
Jon Burgess