Problems Installing Fedora Core 2

[Kris Haight]

Thanks! I'll assume it was Problem #4 you were replying too.

The other 2.6 kernel oddity I did notice (even from the installer) was that
it spins down the hard disks on a warm reboot. Ugh. The DeathStar doenst
recover from this well, so I end up having to cold boot it.

-- Kris

-----Original Message-----
From: fedora-list-bounces at redhat.com [mailto:fedora-list-bounces at redhat.com]
On Behalf Of Alfred Johnson
Sent: Thursday, July 08, 2004 12:17 PM
To: For users of Fedora Core releases
Subject: Re: Problems Installing Fedora Core 2


I had the same problem.  Got around the problem by specifying linux noprobe
on the install boot.  It doesn't stop there,  when I reboot I must put
noprobe on the kernel parameter line or it will hang on re-boot.  Now its to
the point that I must physically disconnect the power cord to re-boot the
bloody machine.

If that's not enough FC2 hangs on shutdown, which means I must repair the
root file system on each boot.

There are definitely problems with probing in FC2.  I first installed FC1
without any issues at all on installation or rebooting.  Don't know if FC2
probing issue is older equipment, firmware on cards or just FC2 software
issues.

The good news is when it comes up, it runs like nothing else.  I mean it
really is fast.

I'm using Dell Dimension 8100 w/ XP2 BIOS, 1GB RAM, 60GB Disk, NVIDA
Geoforce2 with 8MB VRAM.

At 08:44 AM 7/8/04, you wrote:

Hello All-

I usually don't join and then immediately post, but these problems with
Fedora are driving me nuts. But I am wonder if anyone here can help.

The first three are minor problems, then I will get to the big one.

My System Configuration:

AMD Athlon "Thunderbird" 1.2ghz
Asus A7V133 (KT133A Chip) Motherboard
768MB PC133 RAM
ATI All-In-Wonder 7500
Dell D1226H 19" Monitor
3Com 3c905x Network Card
Linksys WMP54G "Wireless-G" Network Card
Adaptec AIC-7850 PCI SCSI Card 
Promise ATA100 UIDE Controller (on board)
Creative Labs SoundBlaster Live! Value
VIA USB Controller
Samsung SM-352B 52x CDR/RW + DVD Drive
Aopen 32X CDROM Drive
Microsoft Wheel Optical USB Mouse
Dell "Internet" Keyboard USB
HP OfficeJet K80 (connected via USB)

(Yes I have no free slots in my computer!)

Hard Drive Configuration:

(on-board IDE controller)

IDE 1:1 --> Samsung CDR/RW/DVD Drive
IDE 1:2 --> Open
IDE 2:1 --> Aopen 32x CDROM Drive
IDE 2:2 --> Open

(Promise UIDE Controller)

UIDE 1:1 --> Western Digital 80GB Drive
/dev/hde1 --> <swap> - 1024mb - Swap FS
/dev/hde2 --> /boot - 150mb - Ext3
/dev/hde3 --> C:\ (Windows XP) - 60GB - NTFS
/dev/hde4 --> / - 16GB - Ext3

UIDE 1:2 --> IBM DeathStar erm I mean Desktar - 75GB
/dev/hdf1 --> D:\ - 75GB - NTFS

UIDE 2:1 --> Maxtor 80GB
/dev/hdg1 --> E:\ - 80GB - NTFS

UIDE 2:2 --> Open

Other System Notes: I have "Plug N Play OS" set to "No" in the BIOS. (helps
with video capturing in Windoze). There is also no way to 'control' the
Promise controller (as you would in the BIOS). It truly is "plug N pray" and
auto detects my drives as "Ultra DMA 5"


Now on to the problems...

Problem #1
----------

I cannot use a USB to PS/2 Mouse converter with my Microsoft Wheel Mouse
Optical USB. I can only use it as a USB mouse. This is not a total bad
thing, but I like my USB ports free for other things.

Problem #2
----------

Installer does not set the /boot partition as the active parition, instead
it keeps my Windows partition as the active partition. This would not make
grub accessible. Once I was able to change the active paritition to my /boot
partition, I could get the grub loader screen, and load into Linux and/or
Windows XP.

Maybe I have not setup a dual boot system in a while, but I could have swore
that the older redhat installers set the active partition to be the /boot
partition (where applicable). Maybe I am wrong?

Problem #3
----------

I get this message when installing..

"Unable to align partition properly. This probably means that another
partition tool generated an incorrect partition table, because it didnt have
the correct BIOS geometry. It is safe to ignore, but ignoring may cause
(fixable) problems with boot loaders."

I just ignore it because I did at one point get linux to load, and it did
not effect the boot loader.


Problem #4 (The big one)
---------- 

Problem: Installer locks up after I select "Custom", then select "Next" from
the installer GUI.

First off, I have to say that I did get it to install at one point because I
used Text mode. However, even after I got it to install, it locked up on
startup.

I can replicate this problem over and over again, and it locks up at the
same exact place. I cannot get past this point.

Things I've Tried:

1. Installing via text mode. Which works, but now locks up on startup
2. I've checked the CDs for errors, No problems using Media Check
3. Ram a Memtest86. Ran this overnight, no issues
4. Manually resized the hard drive with kernel params. Did not help (nor did
not remove that error message)
5. Turned off Power Management in BIOS. Did not help.
6. Passed noapic noalcpic arguments to kernel. Did not help.
7. Thought maybe it was a heating issue. Took off covers, left it off
overnight and tried again. No Workie.

If it means anything, I can replicate a similar problem when trying to load
Mandrake 10.0. But I've never had a problem with Windows XP, but then again
it *IS* Windows :)

Any help on these problems (particually #4) is greatly appreciated.

TIA

-- Kris

Alfred D. Johnson
ComSoft Management Systems
17944 NE 65th Street
Redmond, WA 98052-4963
Cel# : 425.444.4274
Ph# 425.602.4266   
Fax# 425.602.4286
EMAIL: adj at comsoft-mgmt.com