badman...I am using "kernel" and it works fine on your latest mod miner from your sig.
Also, on an earlier version, also a v5 from your sig (4.2.2-254-gfdd4), I HAD to use "kernel". I tried and tried to get the miner to build bin's with the as expected "algorithm" and it would not. I could not figure it out. As a hail mary I tried "kernel" and it proceeded to build all bin's in a jiffy with no other changes.
On your latest miner badman, I just copy/pasted my conf over and no issue building bins with "kernel". I have not tried "algorithm" with this newest miner though.
On a side note, with this newest mod miner one of my three 5870's is going dead. Has never happened before and still doesn't with the last v5 miner I was using. Not sure why this new miner doesn't like it.
my version should be the same as the develop branch except for some changes to the *.cl files in the kernels folder
as for your card going dead, none of mine have had this problem
what algo are you having problems with