Much Challenge Getting F7 Installed

[Thompson Freeman]

Warning - my bad, but replies to replies scattered  
throughout, not concentrated at the end.

On 06/08/2007 11:27:35 AM, Mark Haney wrote:
> 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.

Yes, I was aware of the LIVE CD. I didn't have a logical  
reason for not trying it. I needed to use somebodyelse's  
internet connection to download the software anyhow, so I  
chose to try the DVD and get more software at the same  
time. My local connection is a little bandwidth limited  
unfortunately.

> 
>> 
>> 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.


Thank you. I was afraid I'd omit that detail. The upgrade  
was from FC6. As for yum sitting there taking it's own  
sweet time, I claim a sitting time of 30 minutes hung/flat  
against the wall/broken. Lacking a good error message that  
is my personal standard, but I don't claim it to be the  
correct one. YMMV of course.

> 
>> 
>> 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?

Again, Hung up in this case isn't properly quantified, but  
it was longer than a minute or two. The boot sequence hit  
the configuring eth0 portion, and sat there. And sat. And  
Sat. Yes I do have a DHCP server on the network, and double  
checked it by booting another machine which received it's  
address just fine thank you. Which is what confuses me  
something awful.

> 
>> 
>> 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.

I'll give a look see about the LIVE CD. Knoppix worked a  
few weeks back, so I'm a little less inclined to suspect  
hardware problems, but it is possible of course.

FWIW, again thanks for pointing out I neglected to mention  
that I was starting from FC6. My appologies for the  
omission.