Well, I've been trying to figure out why I can't use dmesg after I build
a custom kernel.  I finally tracked it down to this code

#ifndef DEBUG
                        /* allow reads only in RAM (except for DEBUG) */
                        if (v < ctob(firstusablepage) ||
                            v >= ctob(lastusablepage + 1)) {
				return (EFAULT);
#endif

Is DEBUG supposed to be turned on for all alpha kernels?  If not, should
this code be changed?  (or perhaps relaxed a bit).

--Ken