Trouble with fedora

[Rick Stevens]

Ken Cooper wrote:
> Hi:
> 
>     I have fedora core 3.  I am having trouble running it.  I got the 
> cds, and tryed to install it on my computer, but the anaconda failed.  
> So I installed it on my dads computer.  My dad have almost the same 
> exact computer, and my dads worked PERFECTLY.  So I installed it on my 
> dads, then put the harddrive back up on my computer.  When I loaded 
> linux, it didn't work.  I got a few errors everytime I rebooted.  Here 
> are 2 that I wrote down:
> 
> *ERROR: /bin/insmod excited abnormally*
> 
> and
> 
> *<0> Kernal Panic - not syncing: Attempting to kill init!*
> 
> Is this hardware related, and if so, which piece of hardware?  I KNOW 
> it's not the harddrive, memory, or cd-rom, or video card, or 
> sound-card.  What else could it be?  Thanks for any help you can give me!!!

It sure CAN be memory.  Linux works memory much harder than Windows and
I've seen a number machines that run Windows crash with Linux and it was
bad RAM that was the culprit.  Boot the first CD and at the "boot:"
prompt, enter "memtest86".  Watch it and see if you have any bad memory.

You should also try reseating all of your PCI cards, RAM modules and
your CPU, if possible.  You'd be surprised how many times that fixes the
system.  The connectors get dirty and the cards can make flakey contact
with them.  Reseating the cards often fixes that.
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- Rick Stevens, Senior Systems Engineer     rstevens at vitalstream.com -
- VitalStream, Inc.                       http://www.vitalstream.com -
-                                                                    -
-        Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine.        -
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