profile=schedule parsing is not quite what it should be. First, str[7] is 'e', not ',', but then even if it did fall through, prof_on = SCHED_PROFILING would be clobbered inside if (get_option(...)) So a small amount of rearrangement is done in this patch to correct it. Index: mm1-2.6.12-rc4/kernel/profile.c =================================================================== --- mm1-2.6.12-rc4.orig/kernel/profile.c 2005-05-14 17:09:17.000000000 -0700 +++ mm1-2.6.12-rc4/kernel/profile.c 2005-05-14 17:45:05.000000000 -0700 @@ -49,15 +49,19 @@ static int __init profile_setup(char * str) { + static char __initdata schedstr[] = "schedule"; int par; - if (!strncmp(str, "schedule", 8)) { + if (!strncmp(str, schedstr, strlen(schedstr))) { prof_on = SCHED_PROFILING; - printk(KERN_INFO "kernel schedule profiling enabled\n"); - if (str[7] == ',') - str += 8; - } - if (get_option(&str,&par)) { + if (str[strlen(schedstr)] == ',') + str += strlen(schedstr) + 1; + if (get_option(&str, &par)) + prof_shift = par; + printk(KERN_INFO + "kernel schedule profiling enabled (shift: %ld)\n", + prof_shift); + } else if (get_option(&str, &par)) { prof_shift = par; prof_on = CPU_PROFILING; printk(KERN_INFO "kernel profiling enabled (shift: %ld)\n",