F8RC3 Fails Miserably on HP 8510w Laptop

[Christopher A. Williams]

Downloaded F8RC3 32-bit and 64-bit DVD versions. My system is a HP 8510w
laptop with 4GB RAM.

On the first pass, BOTH fail to load stopping at the message:

running /sbin/loader

After a couple of reboots, BOTH get past this message and eventually you
can complete the install. I also found that if you wait about 10 minutes
(?!?) the installer eventually continues.

On the first boot post-install, X tries to start but fails. The screen
flashes for 1 second and then nothing. Eventually you get a default X
background (grey pattern) and a big X cursor.

On the first try with the 32-bit version, I thought the machine was
totally dead and decided to power cycle the laptop at this point. Next
boot, I found the file system had been so badly corrupted as to require
a complete reinstall. On the 64-bit version, I found that a forced
ctrl-alt-del eventually caused a graceful reboot. Next boot, the system
started in1920X1200 resolution and completed most of the firstboot
setup. The firewall application complained with cryptic error, but I
verified that it took my custom changes later on.

Once up and running (64-bit), the system refuses to recognize the
wireless card at all. This DID work before out of the box with both F8T2
and a Post F8T3 rawhide version. I also got funny error messages with my
ethernet adapter (SIOCCS Flags Input Output error  - or something like
that - in both cases). It was late when I saw this. I'll try it again
when the next test install finishes.

I'm presently trying the 32-bit install again. I'm pretty sure I'll find
the same problems. They're pretty consistent between both versions.

In the end I'll either run the 64-bit version (if I can get all my
Firefox plugins to work) or I'll go back to the 32-bit PAE kernel so I
can use the full 4GB in this machine.

I'm not yet sure what to bugzilla in all of this yet, but I sure hope
these aren't the final bits that become F8 next week...

Cheers,

Chris

-- 
======================
"If we don't succeed,
we run the risk of failure."

-- Former President Bill Clinton