Here's the error I get on a clean build CHK include/config/kernel.release CHK include/generated/uapi/linux/version.h CHK include/generated/utsrelease.h CALL scripts/checksyscalls.sh CHK include/generated/compile.h make[3]: 'arch/x86/realmode/rm/realmode.bin' is up to date. VDSO arch/x86/vdso/vdso.so.dbg /usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu/4.8.2/../../../../x86_64-pc-linux-gnu/bin/ld: error: arch/x86/vdso/vdso.lds:79:12: syntax error, unexpected ':' /usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu/4.8.2/../../../../x86_64-pc-linux-gnu/bin/ld: fatal error: unable to parse script file arch/x86/vdso/vdso.lds collect2: error: ld returned 1 exit status OBJCOPY arch/x86/vdso/vdso.so objcopy: 'arch/x86/vdso/vdso.so.dbg': No such file /usr/src/linux-3/arch/x86/vdso/Makefile:51: recipe for target 'arch/x86/vdso/vdso.so' failed make[2]: *** [arch/x86/vdso/vdso.so] Error 1 scripts/Makefile.build:465: recipe for target 'arch/x86/vdso' failed make[1]: *** [arch/x86/vdso] Error 2 Makefile:878: recipe for target 'arch/x86' failed make: *** [arch/x86] Error 2 It was compiling before but not booting (from incremental git pulls and not doing make clean) - I tracked it down to: 26f5ef2e3c3c18f1dc31461ddf1db00b014edcd4 is the first bad commit commit 26f5ef2e3c3c18f1dc31461ddf1db00b014edcd4 Author: H. Peter Anvin <hpa@linux.intel.com> Date: Tue Mar 25 13:41:36 2014 -0700 x86, vdso: Actually discard the .discard sections I'm using gcc-4.8.2 and binutils-2.24.51.0.3 Before this commit this all worked fine with ld.gold (and still works with ld.bfd) The boot failure made it look like my root partition wasn't being mounted and there were spurious errors from journald
I should also add that reverting that patch allows the kernel to compile again
Here's a patch: http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/tip/tip.git/commit/?id=378ed3ccd2a0404d031e771b65aa3af221ea8aea Should be in the next rc hopefully.
Fixed: http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=39bfe90706ab0f588db7cb4d1c0e6d1181e1d2f9