kickstart install on "low" memory machine

[Shabazian, Chip]

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-----Original Message-----
From: kickstart-list-bounces at redhat.com
[mailto:kickstart-list-bounces at redhat.com] On Behalf Of Alex Mauer
Sent: Wednesday, February 21, 2007 4:19 PM
To: Kickstart-list at redhat.com
Subject: kickstart install on "low" memory machine

I've been trying to do a kickstart install on some machines with a "low"
amount of memory (128MB).  It gets through the initial setup, formatting
and partitioning the hard drive.  But then as it's installing packages,
it will hang (generally on glibc-common).  If I watch free on the second
vt, I can see that it's swapping, and I of course expect it to be slow
when it has to do that.  But eventually it will just hang, and the HDD
activity light stops and the free memory amount stops changing.  It's
not out of memory (there's generally about 16-32MB of memory free).  It
hasn't locked up (the system still accepts input, I can switch VTs and
run programs (and kill anaconda too)).  But I can leave it sitting there
for hours (I think 16 was the longest I waited) and it won't ever get
past whichever package it hangs on -- it does get to 100% on that
package though.  If I upgrade the system to 256MB of RAM, it runs
through the install in about 45 min.  Does anyone have any suggestions
for additional debugging/diagnosis I can do?