Kernel 2.6.23 hangs at "starting udev ..."

[Harald Hoyer]

Forcey wrote:
> Hi All,
> 
> I tried to install F8 on one of my servers, but it hangs at "starting
> udev..." when booting. Kernel 2.6.23 for F7 has the same problem. Now
> I'm still running the old 2.6.21-1 kernel, but I'm not comfortable
> with it since there's a nf_conntrack bug. My hardware is listed as
> following:
> 
> I know this is a common problem with laptops, and I tried a bundle of
> solutions but none worked. Does anyone knows how to workaround this?
> 
> Thanks,
> Forcey.
> 

Hangs completely, or does it commence after 30s?

If the latter, try this build for Fedora 8 (if you are running F8): 
http://koji.fedoraproject.org/koji/buildinfo?buildID=48328

# rpm -Uvh 'http://koji.fedoraproject.org/packages/udev/118/2.fc8/i386/udev-118-2.fc8.i386.rpm'
or for x86_64
# rpm -Uvh 'http://koji.fedoraproject.org/packages/udev/118/2.fc8/x86_64/udev-118-2.fc8.x86_64.rpm'

reboot and add "modprobedebug" to the kernel command line in the grub boot screen.

Maybe we can catch a module, which causes udev to hang so long.