I haven't been able to track this down at all, short of noting that it
happens during VC switches, and that I had a similar problem with one of the
1.3.x kernels (1.3.57 or 1.3.67 maybe).
Hardware:
386/20 with a warmed over 386 chip in it (Cyrix 386->486 upgrade.
They add support for 486 instructions and a 1K L1 cache). AWE32 Plug and
Pray, configured from DOS (then I reboot into Linux). Mitsumi 4X CDROM
plugged into the IDE port on the AWE32 -- Linux likes it. 8MB RAM.
This appears to be specific to 2.0.10. 2.0.8 didn't have this problem.
I've included my arch/i386/defconfig file to show how I have my kernel
configured.
#
# Automatically generated make config: don't edit
#
#
# Code maturity level options
#
# CONFIG_EXPERIMENTAL is not set
#
# Loadable module support
#
CONFIG_MODULES=y
# CONFIG_MODVERSIONS is not set
# CONFIG_KERNELD is not set
#
# General setup
#
# CONFIG_MATH_EMULATION is not set
CONFIG_NET=y
# CONFIG_MAX_16M is not set
CONFIG_PCI=y
CONFIG_SYSVIPC=y
CONFIG_BINFMT_AOUT=y
CONFIG_BINFMT_ELF=y
CONFIG_KERNEL_ELF=y
# CONFIG_M386 is not set
# CONFIG_M486 is not set
CONFIG_M586=y
# CONFIG_M686 is not set
#
# Floppy, IDE, and other block devices
#
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_FD=y
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_IDE=y
#
# Please see Documentation/ide.txt for help/info on IDE drives
#
# CONFIG_BLK_DEV_HD_IDE is not set
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_IDECD=y
# CONFIG_BLK_DEV_IDETAPE is not set
# CONFIG_BLK_DEV_IDE_PCMCIA is not set
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_CMD640=y
# CONFIG_BLK_DEV_TRITON is not set
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_RZ1000=y
# CONFIG_IDE_CHIPSETS is not set
#
# Additional Block Devices
#
# CONFIG_BLK_DEV_LOOP is not set
# CONFIG_BLK_DEV_MD is not set
# CONFIG_BLK_DEV_RAM is not set
# CONFIG_BLK_DEV_XD is not set
#
# Networking options
#
# CONFIG_FIREWALL is not set
# CONFIG_NET_ALIAS is not set
CONFIG_INET=y
# CONFIG_IP_FORWARD is not set
# CONFIG_IP_MULTICAST is not set
# CONFIG_IP_ACCT is not set
#
# (it is safe to leave these untouched)
#
# CONFIG_INET_PCTCP is not set
# CONFIG_INET_RARP is not set
# CONFIG_NO_PATH_MTU_DISCOVERY is not set
CONFIG_IP_NOSR=y
CONFIG_SKB_LARGE=y
#
#
#
# CONFIG_IPX is not set
# CONFIG_ATALK is not set
# CONFIG_AX25 is not set
# CONFIG_NETLINK is not set
#
# SCSI support
#
# CONFIG_SCSI is not set
#
# Network device support
#
CONFIG_NETDEVICES=y
CONFIG_DUMMY=m
# CONFIG_EQUALIZER is not set
# CONFIG_PLIP is not set
# CONFIG_PPP is not set
# CONFIG_SLIP is not set
# CONFIG_NET_RADIO is not set
CONFIG_NET_ETHERNET=y
CONFIG_NET_VENDOR_3COM=y
# CONFIG_EL1 is not set
# CONFIG_EL2 is not set
CONFIG_EL3=y
# CONFIG_VORTEX is not set
# CONFIG_LANCE is not set
# CONFIG_NET_VENDOR_SMC is not set
# CONFIG_NET_ISA is not set
# CONFIG_NET_EISA is not set
# CONFIG_NET_POCKET is not set
# CONFIG_TR is not set
# CONFIG_ARCNET is not set
#
# ISDN subsystem
#
# CONFIG_ISDN is not set
#
# CD-ROM drivers (not for SCSI or IDE/ATAPI drives)
#
# CONFIG_CD_NO_IDESCSI is not set
#
# Filesystems
#
# CONFIG_QUOTA is not set
# CONFIG_LOCK_MANDATORY is not set
CONFIG_MINIX_FS=y
# CONFIG_EXT_FS is not set
CONFIG_EXT2_FS=y
# CONFIG_XIA_FS is not set
CONFIG_FAT_FS=y
CONFIG_MSDOS_FS=y
# CONFIG_VFAT_FS is not set
# CONFIG_UMSDOS_FS is not set
CONFIG_PROC_FS=y
CONFIG_NFS_FS=y
# CONFIG_ROOT_NFS is not set
# CONFIG_SMB_FS is not set
CONFIG_ISO9660_FS=y
# CONFIG_HPFS_FS is not set
# CONFIG_SYSV_FS is not set
# CONFIG_UFS_FS is not set
#
# Character devices
#
CONFIG_SERIAL=y
# CONFIG_DIGI is not set
# CONFIG_CYCLADES is not set
# CONFIG_STALDRV is not set
# CONFIG_RISCOM8 is not set
# CONFIG_PRINTER is not set
# CONFIG_MOUSE is not set
# CONFIG_UMISC is not set
# CONFIG_QIC02_TAPE is not set
# CONFIG_FTAPE is not set
# CONFIG_APM is not set
# CONFIG_WATCHDOG is not set
# CONFIG_RTC is not set
#
# Sound
#
# CONFIG_SOUND is not set
#
# Kernel hacking
#
# CONFIG_PROFILE is not set