Well, the major problem with getting gdb up was that init is for
some reason setting the blocked signal mask to 0x39 (this includes
sighup, sigtrap and a couple of others).  

  I will debug this next, right now I have this gross hack on gdb to
reset the signal mask to zero.  Any ideas of why would init be doing this?

Well, I'll look at this when I get off the plane or so ...

I finally tracked the problem with <CTRL>-s locking up the machine down.
It's a missing restore_flags() in the newport driver that makes the
keyboard driver bottom half go bobo.  Also we were missing irq_enter/
irq_leave in the Indy interrupt handler.  The patch, well, it's in my
suit case.  Have fun with your crashing boxes :-)

California, I'm comin',

  Ralf