Kernel I captured this from is dirty, but virgin source does exactly the same. gzipped config attached. [ 32.211999] rtc_cmos 00:03: rtc core: registered rtc_cmos as rtc0 [ 32.227226] BUG: unable to handle kernel NULL pointer dereference at virtual address 00000018 [ 32.245198] printing eip: [ 32.257172] c03c7cc8 [ 32.268434] *pde = 00000000 [ 32.280222] Oops: 0000 [#1] [ 32.291997] PREEMPT SMP [ 32.303352] Modules linked in: [ 32.315009] CPU: 0 [ 32.315010] EIP: 0060:[] Not tainted VLI [ 32.315011] EFLAGS: 00010202 (2.6.20-smp-g575d5e72-dirty #25) [ 32.353865] EIP is at rtc_sysfs_remove_device+0x18/0x4b [ 32.367596] eax: 00000000 ebx: dfef0454 ecx: c03c7cb0 edx: c064212c [ 32.383044] esi: dfef0454 edi: c19c5f00 ebp: c18ede3c esp: c18ede38 [ 32.398590] ds: 007b es: 007b fs: 00d8 gs: 0000 ss: 0068 [ 32.413219] Process swapper (pid: 1, ti=c18ed000 task=c18eca50 task.ti=c18ed000) [ 32.420821] Stack: c064212c c18ede5c c0350b5e c19c5e74 00000000 c19c5f08 dfef0454 dfef050c [ 32.438377] c1997244 c18ede68 c0350c21 dfef0454 c18ede78 c03c752f fffffff0 c199741c [ 32.456025] c18edea8 c03c931d 00000000 00000020 00000004 c04f8c60 00000008 00000000 [ 32.473692] Call Trace: [ 32.493941] [] show_trace_log_lvl+0x1a/0x30 [ 32.508144] [] show_stack_log_lvl+0xa5/0xca [ 32.522210] [] show_registers+0x1fc/0x341 [ 32.536006] [] die+0x11c/0x22b [ 32.548692] [] do_page_fault+0x160/0x575 [ 32.562185] [] error_code+0x7c/0x84 [ 32.575029] [] class_device_del+0x72/0x12a [ 32.588332] [] class_device_unregister+0xb/0x15 [ 32.601816] [] rtc_device_unregister+0x2c/0x30 [ 32.615146] [] cmos_pnp_probe+0x147/0x1ee [ 32.627927] [] pnp_device_probe+0x4c/0xa0 [ 32.640614] [] really_probe+0x5c/0x163 [ 32.652999] [] driver_probe_device+0x9d/0xa9 [ 32.665800] [] __driver_attach+0x84/0x86 [ 32.678364] [] bus_for_each_dev+0x44/0x62 [ 32.690966] [] driver_attach+0x19/0x1b [ 32.703177] [] bus_add_driver+0x6a/0x185 [ 32.715467] [] driver_register+0x54/0x84 [ 32.727547] [] pnp_register_driver+0x17/0x19 [ 32.739810] [] cmos_init+0xd/0xf [ 32.751078] [] init+0x114/0x23c [ 32.762285] [] kernel_thread_helper+0x7/0x1c [ 32.774782] ======================= [ 32.785651] Code: 8b 45 f0 e8 0a 5a 10 00 89 f8 83 c4 04 5b 5e 5f 5d c3 90 55 89 e5 53 89 c3 8b 40 6c f6 80 2c 01 00 00 01 74 0d 8b 83 b4 00 00 00 <8b> 40 18 85 c0 75 10 8d 43 08 ba 48 21 64 c0 e8 75 e4 de ff 5b [ 32.830191] EIP: [] rtc_sysfs_remove_device+0x18/0x4b SS:ESP 0068:c18ede38 [ 32.846381] Kernel panic - not syncing: Attempted to kill init!