I upgraded my Debian kernel to package kernel-image-2.6.11-1-386 and excitedly restarted the computer only to see the boot hang Debian boot hangs at

ACPI: setting ELCR to 0200 (from 0800)

I'm running an IBM T23... the old kernel (2.4.27) still works just fine though. Anyway, how would I go about fixing this?

T23s can't use ACPI, in fact they'll refuse to install unless you explicitly disable ACPI on the command line.
I'm guessing your old kernel used apm and the new one has ACPI (statically compiled?) and hangs when it doesn't work.
You'll have to interrupt your boot manager (grub or lilo), select the new kernel and then add

to the end of it. It should then boot fine.

Then edit grub or lilo to tack that onto the end by default and ensure apm is enabled. The relevant info is here, so I won't repeat it (applies to Debian as well): http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthre...t=thinkpad+apm

And yes, I do have a T23, and it is pretty damn annoying when you first see this happen.

i don't know what's the problem about installing or running an ACPI enabled kernel on a t23 - neved hear of it. i recompiled the kernel from sources, the ACPI is on, everything works fine except the hibernate or suspend. in order to enable suspend i have to give the "acpi=off apm=on" option at boot. but if you don't care about suspend or hibernate - it works fine for me with ACPI. if anybody is interested i can post the .config file for the kernel - it's a 2.6.14.