Andrew Morton wrote:

[...]
> What would the next message have been, if it had not hung up?

Here attached, a normal startup with -mm4.

Note that I had this problem also with -mm3, that occasionally hanged 
both at this step _OR_ after ACPI processor module insertion: in that 
case the last line shown at startup was:

ACPI: Processor [CPU0] (supports C1, C2, C3, 8 throttling states)

i.e. line #154 in the attached dmesg.

All of the boots I've done with -mm5 (5 or 6), instead, hanged after 
ide0 (but may be pure coincidence).

Bye

-- 
Stefano RIVOIR