Summary is a little general beacuse I'm not sure which exactly option makes kernel unbootable. "Unbootable" I mean kernel reboots immediately after grub load vmlinuz. This is diff beetwen unbootable and bootable kernel: # diff -u config-3.8.4-hardened-r1.old config-3.8.4-hardened-r1 --- config-3.8.4-hardened-r1.old 2013-03-29 23:28:25.000000000 +0100 +++ config-3.8.4-hardened-r1 2013-03-29 23:40:13.000000000 +0100 @@ -168,7 +168,7 @@ # CONFIG_SYSCTL_SYSCALL is not set CONFIG_SYSCTL_EXCEPTION_TRACE=y CONFIG_KALLSYMS=y -CONFIG_KALLSYMS_ALL=y +# CONFIG_KALLSYMS_ALL is not set CONFIG_HOTPLUG=y CONFIG_PRINTK=y CONFIG_BUG=y @@ -2452,7 +2452,6 @@ # CONFIG_LOCK_STAT is not set # CONFIG_DEBUG_ATOMIC_SLEEP is not set # CONFIG_DEBUG_LOCKING_API_SELFTESTS is not set -CONFIG_STACKTRACE=y # CONFIG_DEBUG_STACK_USAGE is not set # CONFIG_DEBUG_KOBJECT is not set CONFIG_DEBUG_BUGVERBOSE=y @@ -2480,7 +2479,7 @@ # CONFIG_LKDTM is not set # CONFIG_NOTIFIER_ERROR_INJECTION is not set # CONFIG_FAULT_INJECTION is not set -CONFIG_LATENCYTOP=y +# CONFIG_LATENCYTOP is not set # CONFIG_DEBUG_PAGEALLOC is not set CONFIG_USER_STACKTRACE_SUPPORT=y CONFIG_HAVE_FUNCTION_TRACER=y # emerge --info Portage 2.1.11.55 (hardened/linux/amd64, gcc-4.7.2, glibc-2.15-r3, 3.8.4-hardened-r1 x86_64) ================================================================= System uname: Linux-3.8.4-hardened-r1-x86_64-Intel-R-_Xeon-R-_CPU_E3-1230_V2_@_3.30GHz-with-gentoo-2.1 KiB Mem: 16451000 total, 10676096 free KiB Swap: 4193264 total, 4193264 free Timestamp of tree: Fri, 29 Mar 2013 20:30:01 +0000 ld GNU ld (GNU Binutils) 2.22 ccache version 3.1.9 [enabled] app-shells/bash: 4.2_p37 dev-lang/python: 2.7.3-r3, 3.2.3-r2 dev-util/ccache: 3.1.9 dev-util/pkgconfig: 0.28 sys-apps/baselayout: 2.1-r1 sys-apps/openrc: 0.11.8 sys-apps/sandbox: 2.5 sys-devel/autoconf: 2.69 sys-devel/automake: 1.11.6 sys-devel/binutils: 2.22-r1 sys-devel/gcc: 4.7.2-r1 sys-devel/gcc-config: 1.7.3 sys-devel/libtool: 2.4-r1 sys-devel/make: 3.82-r4 sys-kernel/linux-headers: 3.7 (virtual/os-headers) sys-libs/glibc: 2.15-r3 Repositories: gentoo qemu-init ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="amd64" ACCEPT_LICENSE="* -@EULA" CBUILD="x86_64-pc-linux-gnu" CFLAGS="-O2 -pipe -march=native -frecord-gcc-switches -fno-unwind-tables -fno-asynchronous-unwind-tables -fexpensive-optimizations" CHOST="x86_64-pc-linux-gnu" CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc" CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/ca-certificates.conf /etc/env.d /etc/gconf /etc/gentoo-release /etc/revdep-rebuild /etc/sandbox.d /etc/terminfo" CXXFLAGS="-O2 -pipe -march=native -frecord-gcc-switches -fno-unwind-tables -fno-asynchronous-unwind-tables -fexpensive-optimizations" DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles" FCFLAGS="-O2 -pipe" FEATURES="assume-digests binpkg-logs ccache collision-protect compressdebug config-protect-if-modified distlocks ebuild-locks fixlafiles merge-sync news parallel-fetch preserve-libs protect-owned sandbox sfperms strict unknown-features-warn unmerge-logs unmerge-orphans userfetch userpriv usersandbox xattr" FFLAGS="-O2 -pipe" GENTOO_MIRRORS="http://distfiles.gentoo.org" LANG="pl_PL.utf8" LDFLAGS="-Wl,-O1 -Wl,--as-needed -Wl,--sort-common" MAKEOPTS="-j9" PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages" PORTAGE_CONFIGROOT="/" PORTAGE_RSYNC_EXTRA_OPTS="-O" PORTAGE_RSYNC_OPTS="--recursive --links --safe-links --perms --times --compress --force --whole-file --delete --stats --human-readable --timeout=180 --exclude=/distfiles --exclude=/local --exclude=/packages" PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp" PORTDIR="/usr/portage" PORTDIR_OVERLAY="/var/lib/layman/qemu-init" SYNC="rsync://gentoo-mirror/gentoo-portage" USE="acl acpi amd64 avx bash-completion caps custom-cflags cxx hardened hwdb iconv ipv6 mmxext multilib nls openmp sse2 sse3 sse4 sse41 sse4_1 ssse3 threads udev unicode vim-syntax xattr" ABI_X86="64" CURL_SSL="openssl" ELIBC="glibc" GRUB_PLATFORMS="multiboot pc" KERNEL="linux" LINGUAS="en" PYTHON_TARGETS="python2_7 python3_2" QEMU_SOFTMMU_TARGETS="i386 x86_64" QEMU_USER_TARGETS="i386 x86_64" USERLAND="GNU" Unset: CPPFLAGS, CTARGET, EMERGE_DEFAULT_OPTS, INSTALL_MASK, LC_ALL, PORTAGE_BUNZIP2_COMMAND, PORTAGE_COMPRESS, PORTAGE_COMPRESS_FLAGS, USE_PYTHON
Created attachment 343684 [details] config for non bootable kernel
Created attachment 343686 [details] config for bootable kernel
grep 'kallsyms\|stacktrace\|latencytop' .config -i CONFIG_STACKTRACE_SUPPORT=y CONFIG_HAVE_LATENCYTOP_SUPPORT=y CONFIG_KALLSYMS=y CONFIG_USER_STACKTRACE_SUPPORT=y I find this rather interesting as multiple machines are booting using this config. These systems are all 3.8.4-r1 as well.
I just marked 2.6.32-r170, 3.2.46-r1, 3.9.5 stable.. Please test and if this is still an issue reopen.