spawning too fast.

[Barry Pollock]

The 5 minute messages are generally caused by an improper /etc/inittab
I had the same problem with a 2.4.17 kernel .
You could try your backup of fstab. Also you could download
Contentents-i386.gz
from any debian site in
/debian/dists/testing/Contents-i386.gz
When you gunzip the file you can search for
/etc/inittab
Note that each distribution has its own Contents-i386.gz
Barry