Possible bug with kernel decompressor.

[Matthew Schumacher]

List,

I think I found a bug here because I can repeatably get the same kernel 
(checked with md5sum) to decompress and to fail with the error:

invalid compressed format (err=2)

  --System halted


Here is how I can reproduce the problem:

Boot 2.6.8-rc1
Run md5sum on 2.6.8-rc1 kernel
Turn power off (this is an embedded system with only ramdisk mounted)
Turn power on
Kernel fails to boot with "invalid compressed format (err=2)"
Restart system
Boot 2.4.26
Run md5sum on 2.6.8-rc1 kernel (matches md5sum above)
Shutdown properly
boot 2.6.8-rc1 (works fine)
Run md5sum on 2.6.8-rc1 kernel (matches md5sum above)

So you see if I don't shutdown properly (which shouldn't be required for 
an embedded system using a ramdisk) my kernel won't decompress itself 
until I run another kernel and shutdown properly.  I know that the 
kernel didn't change so something else must be causing it to fail.

I call this a bug simply because a power failure could cause someone to 
loose the ability to boot their machine.

Here is the hardware:
Whistle Interjet (486 SBC)
64MB of memory
IDE disk.
Can reproduce with linux  2.6.5, 2.6.6, 2.6.7, and 2.6.8-rc1
Both kernel images and the initrd image both live on a fat16 partition 
and are started with syslinux.  I can reproduce this problem with any 
version of syslinux I have tried.

Please CC me in any replies since I am not on the list.

Thanks,

schu


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