I've been having a bad time getting 2.4 to work a new Duron 900
system. I can compile a happy 386 or pentium optimized kernel, but when I
try to select Duron/Athlon CPU type in the config, the resulting kernel
has all manner of problems booting.

FWIW, this is a slackware 8.0 install, which came with 2.4.5. After trying
several times with that, I grabbed 2.4.9. Same deal -- 386 or pentium
optimizations boot happily, but no dice for the Duron choice. 

Anyone else had similar experiences, or have any insights about this? 
Could it, e.g., be the gcc version? Just for fun I tried compiliing with
egcs, but had same result.

Cheers,

Andy