From: Rusty Russell Agustin Martin pointed out that this doesn't work: options ide-mod options="ide=nodma hdc=cdrom" The quotes are understood by kernel/params.c (ie. it skips over spaces inside them), but are not stripped before handing to the underlying function. They should be. --- 25-akpm/kernel/params.c | 7 +++++++ 1 files changed, 7 insertions(+) diff -puN kernel/params.c~strip-param-quotes kernel/params.c --- 25/kernel/params.c~strip-param-quotes 2004-04-03 03:00:06.033314352 -0800 +++ 25-akpm/kernel/params.c 2004-04-03 03:00:06.036313896 -0800 @@ -96,6 +96,13 @@ static char *next_arg(char *args, char * else { args[equals] = '\0'; *val = args + equals + 1; + + /* Don't include quotes in value. */ + if (**val == '"') { + (*val)++; + if (args[i-1] == '"') + args[i-1] = '\0'; + } } if (args[i]) { _