Much Challenge Getting F7 Installed

Mark Haney mhaney at ercbroadband.org
Fri Jun 8 15:27:35 UTC 2007


tom wrote:
> 
> Well, its been fun so far... NOT! I'd post a bug report, but I don't 
> think I can offer enough details to make it worth the engineer's time to 
> fool with. Perhaps bitching here can improve my report to make it worth 
> while.
> 
> I would like to tryout F7 on one of my machines. I have downloaded and 
> burned the DVD which passes the media check at the beginning of the 
> install sequence. I suspect that the victum machine may be a little 
> light on RAM with 256  MB installed, but I'll have to dig for further 
> details on the hardware, because I've forgotten the details in the past 
> 2 years.

Um, are you aware they have LIVE CD versions now?  That might have made 
sense if the system is a 'little light on RAM' and that might be an issue.

> 
> FWIW, I did remember to backup to external HD both my personal 
> data/files and the /etc directory tree. I've been known to forget that 
> step.
> 
> The first attempt, I went for an update rather than a full install, 
> using the full graphical installer. Things went very well until 
> installing the eighth package, where it hit a wall and just sat there. I 
> examined the four virtual consoles and didn't find any obvious error 
> conditions, so what ever hit me, didn't lock up the console.

Okay, update from what to F7?  Anything other than FC6 might cause that 
very problem, it's probably yum sitting there taking its pretty time, 
I've seen it happen before.

> 
> Second attempt was an update again, but using the nongui version of the 
> installer. This attempt got roughly half way through before hitting the 
> wall. Again, I found no obvious error announcements in any of the four 
> virtual consoles.
> 
> Third attempt I gave up the idea of updating, and went for a fully clean 
> install in the gui. I tried to let it run the network, and it hung up on 
> getting an ip address via dhcp from the server. Reboot.

Hung up?  How?  Normally after a minute the interface will stop trying 
to get an IP and continue to boot.  Sounds more like something else 
other than network.  Unless you don't have a DHCP server?

> 
> Fourth attempt, I went for a clean install in the gui, but forget about 
> the network configuration attempt. No point in tempting fate again, but 
> of course I already had.  I had tried to customize the package list. I 
> got something like 900 of 1100(?) packages installed, and the installer 
> died, with an error message for once. Of course, the message asked me to 
> copy it down, and was the better part of 50 or 60 lines long. I'm not 
> that confident with pencil and paper in the middle of the night, and 
> didn't recognize any particular line as most critical. I think I noticed 
> something about being out of memory however.
> 
> Last attempt was a clean install, nongui, with just a desktop selected. 
> I did get a bootable system, vaguely sort of. Actually, the boot 
> sequence hung hard looking for the ip address with dhcp. I could boot 
> single user, and fiddled with dhclient and friends. No joy, and 
> extremely poor notes, so I cann't really document what I tried. 
> Eventually, I got into X as root, and ran the network configuration 
> routine which worked, but please don't ask how I got there. I gave up 
> for the morning at that point, and went to bed.
> 
> I'm almost half tempted to wipe the appropriate partitions clean again, 
> try again, and if I get a goof up make a long day trip down to RH to let 
> one of their engineers try and document the challenge. I'd have to get 
> the invite first of course. I've been threatening to do that since RH4.0 
> or so, so I'm not too worried about it.
> 
> Ok. What do I need to dig up to make this into a possibly usable bug 
> report?
> 

Um, try the LIve CD and see what bombs in dmesg.  Then go from there.  I 
suspect a hardware problem rather than software.  If F7 LIve doesn't 
work, try another LiveCD.


-- 
Da mihi sis bubulae frustrum assae, solana tuberosa in modo gallico 
fricta, ac quassum lactatum coagulatum crassum


Mark Haney
Sr. Systems Administrator
ERC Broadband
(828) 350-2415

Call (866) ERC-7110 for after hours support




More information about the fedora-list mailing list