Before that commit, my mips kernel booted to a shell prompt. After, qemu segfaults immediately.
To test this, you can grab my system image at http://landley.net/aboriginal/downloads/binaries/system-image-mips.tar.bz2 and ./run-emulator.sh out off that. Rob -- GPLv3: as worthy a successor as The Phantom Menace, as timely as Duke Nukem Forever, and as welcome as New Coke.