that doesn't exactly rule out machine instability though. could easily be that a specific chunk of RAM is repeatably bad in a way that the second case avoids by coincidence.I really don't think it is machine instability because
- it reproduces exactly the same every time
- it does build in /usr/src/release on the same machine
I think this is unlikely, given the way virtual memory pages are mapped to process space. I think the chance that the bad memory page always leads to the same compilation error is minimal.that doesn't exactly rule out machine instability though. could easily be that a specific chunk of RAM is repeatably bad in a way that the second case avoids by coincidence.
something else to consider: might some of the problem source files be auto-generated by the Makefiles...and, if the Makefiles introduce any sort of build parallelism, the internally executing shell scripts can cause a lack of necessary determinism. ie dependencies generated by internal scripts may of may not be ready when needed. I've not built BSD kernel in many many years so my comments are just WAGs.
ktrace+kdump & comparing/checking accessed files wouldve caught thisMy mistake was to blindly assume (and state in the OP) that the src trees were identical because I pulled them at the same time and did `make clean`.