Re: [parisc-linux] ELF32 kernel

[Paul Bame <bame@endor.fc.hp.com>]

= There's a problem when I enable CONFIG_PROC_FS where devinet_init()
= calls register_sysctl_table() with a ctl_table containing a char*
= pointer (for ->procname) containing the value 0x20, which eventually
= dies in strlen() at a lower level.

Actually CONFIG_PROC_FS works, but CONFIG_SYSCTL doesn't, for the
reason above, so I changed defconfig to reflect this.

I tracked the problem down to what appears to be a compiler
bug, in that the devinet_sysctl_table struct in net/ipv4/devinet.c
works well until you try to generate a pointer to the last 'ctl_table'
element inside that struct.  This pointer value is bogus, leading to
the misbehavior described above.  I can make the problem move around
by inserting fields in the struct, so it appears that gcc can't generate
valid pointers to members past a certain struct size.

This could also be a difficulty for SOM folks who use the compiler
from CVS on puffin.external.hp.com and who configure kernels including
networking.

I'm out of my depth hacking gcc.

	-Paul Bame