The patch worked - I'm booting without errors now. I tried to figure out
what was going on by looking at the patch, but it's still sort of beyond
me... What was the problem?

Oh... FWIW, the kernel I just compiled is able to reboot without freezing,
as was the 1.3_ALPHA kernel I had previously been running. Either I'm
exceedingly lucky, or something has changed that's sidestepped or fixed the
"crash on reboot" problem, at least on my system.

--
Mason Loring Bliss...mason@acheron.middleboro.ma.us...www.webtrek.com/mason
"In the drowsy dark cave of the mind dreams build their nest with fragments
 dropped from day's caravan."--Rabindranath Tagore...awake ? sleep : dream;