Incomprehensible Boot freeze & Crash - Kernel 2.6.12

[thomas <thomas.bsd@gmail.com>]

Hello,
I'm running Debian GNU/Linux Etch on an Acer Aspire 1682 laptop with
kernel 2.6.12-1-686. So far the system was rock solid but I'm now
experiencing a boot freeze:

... Setting up ICE socket directory /tmp/ICE-Unix... done
INIT: Entering runlevel: 2
Starting system log daemon: syslogd

Then, nothing. However I can boot in "recover mode" (that is, single
user & root login). There does not seem to be any hardware failure,
the partitions are properly mounted, and there is engough free space
on any of them. When I shut down the box, hundreds of lines of errors
messages are outputted. I cannot read them all but here are the last
ones:

EIP is at do_page_fault+0xd6/0x6bf
eax: dfa40000 ebx:00000000 ecx:0000007b edx:ffffff7b esi:00030001
edi:0000000d ebp:0000000b esp: dfa417c8
ds: 007b es:007b ss:0008
Unable to handle kernel paging request at virtual address ffffffef
printing eip:
c0114fe6
*pde=00002067
*pte=00000000
Recursive die() failure, output suppressed
 <0> Kernel panic - not syncing: Fatal exception in interrupt
_

The last time Linux could boot properly, I did not perform any task at
root: I did not install any hardware, nor I modified any config file.
I did not change anything in the BIOS either.

I have tried to boot with special options (noapic, nolapic, pci=off,
pnpbios=off) without success.

I can show any file on my system if needed.

Thanks in advance for your help. I have absolutely no idea of what I
can do; without your help I can go nowhere.

Best regards,
Thomas
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