git bisect and the merge from hell

Sometime between -rc1 and -rc2 the ia64 kernel picked up a bug that prevents booting a UP kernel on my workstation (I recycled the serial cable to hook up a new machine, so I don't have the OOPS).

So I thought I'd use git bisect to narrow it down. A few iterations in it picked the merge from hell, and two iterations after that it appears to have wandered into the weeds and picked something from before -rc1.

 $ git describe 3c5c363826e435cf4d54d917202567e5b57cae5f
 v2.6.15-g3c5c3638

Is this normal?

A couple of iterations down (with git bisect saying that we were into the home stretch with only 5 commits to go) I ran into build problems, so I haven't yet got to the bottom of the problem).

Here's the BISECT_LOG: git-bisect start # bad: [826eeb53a6f264842200d3311d69107d2eb25f5e] Linux v2.6.16-rc2 git-bisect bad 826eeb53a6f264842200d3311d69107d2eb25f5e # good: [2664b25051f7ab96b22b199aa2f5ef6a949a4296] Linux v2.6.16-rc1 git-bisect good 2664b25051f7ab96b22b199aa2f5ef6a949a4296 # good: [10379a25fee8ddc8698d2f6c54ccedd4664c2941] Merge master.kernel.org:/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/davej/agpgart git-bisect good 10379a25fee8ddc8698d2f6c54ccedd4664c2941 # good: [9a2dba4b4912b493070cbc170629fdbf440b01d7] slab: rename ac_data to cpu_cache_get git-bisect good 9a2dba4b4912b493070cbc170629fdbf440b01d7 # good: [9ad11ab48b1ad618bf47076e9e579f267f5306c2] compat: fix compat_sys_openat and friends git-bisect good 9ad11ab48b1ad618bf47076e9e579f267f5306c2 # good: [1494a92f4c2b1d5abdaa1f823dd19f797bb137de] [ALSA] hda-codec - Fix typos in alc882 model table git-bisect good 1494a92f4c2b1d5abdaa1f823dd19f797bb137de # bad: [9fdb62af92c741addbea15545f214a6e89460865] [ACPI] merge 3549 4320 4485 4588 4980 5483 5651 acpica asus fops pnpacpi branches into release git-bisect bad 9fdb62af92c741addbea15545f214a6e89460865 # bad: [3c5c363826e435cf4d54d917202567e5b57cae5f] [ACPI] delete message "**** SET: Misaligned resource pointer:" git-bisect bad 3c5c363826e435cf4d54d917202567e5b57cae5f # bad: [c51a4de85de720670f2fbc592a6f8040af72ad87] [ACPI] ACPICA 20051117 git-bisect bad c51a4de85de720670f2fbc592a6f8040af72ad87

Git version is 1.1.4

-Tony