tar breaking on large backups, ss20, unstable 2.4.22

[Heitzso <heitzso@growthmodels.com>]

My ss20 box running unstable debian on custom 2.4.22 kernel
seems to function fine with a couple of exceptions.

- tar hangs on large backups.  Just tested backing up a couple G
  and hung at half G worth of tar

- top fails with a failure to read /proc/stat error message
  (noted in earlier email to the list)

- umounts of my NFS backup volume is failing, even
after the hung tar is killed

BTW, al of these pieces were working a couple of weeks
ago before the upgrade that forced me to bump from 2.2.25
to 2.4.22.

Suggestions?

Thanks,
Heitzso