MEDIUM: buffer: always assign a dummy empty buffer to channels

MEDIUM: buffer: always assign a dummy empty buffer to channels

Channels are now created with a valid pointer to a buffer before the
buffer is allocated. This buffer is a global one called "buf_empty" and
of size zero. Thus it prevents any activity from being performed on
the buffer and still ensures that chn->buf may always be dereferenced.
b_free() also resets the buffer to &buf_empty, and was split into
b_drop() which does not reset the buffer.