[rhelv6-list] Redhat 6 installation failures common

[Stephen John Smoogen]

On Tue, Apr 5, 2011 at 12:07, D G Teed <donald.teed at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> On Tue, Apr 5, 2011 at 2:34 PM, Lamar Owen <lowen at pari.edu> wrote:
>>
>> RHEL 6 uses a different set of drivers for certain IDE/ATA chips, and
>> apparently certain chips aren't properly supported any more in recent
>> kernels.  I'm thinking specifically of Intel 845 and 865 (I think; I'm sure
>> of the 845), like used in Dell Dimension 4500S desktops.  Fedora 14, 13, and
>> 12 won't install on them either; older (pre-all ATA uses libata) works fine.
>>  Same error you see there.
>>
>> The CD-ROM is initially booted as a BIOS device, but once control passes
>> from the initramfs to anaconda the access to the device goes through other
>> channels, and for some reason those chips have issues with the new ATA
>> stack.  At least our Dell Dimension 4500S's have issues there; I wanted to
>> use a Fedora liveCD to do a disk clone on one, and it would not boot at all;
>> had to back up to an older version of SystemRescueCD (1.1.0; current is
>> quite a bit more modern).  So, try a number of LiveCD's and work up to where
>> it quits working (use Fedora LiveCD's for consistency); start at FC6 and
>> work your way up, and find out where it quites working.
>>
>> Need more info on your devices to help further.
>
> Our chipset is 82801 and 82901EB.
> The Intel motherboard is S875WP1-E
>
> It is about 5 years old, but it isn't unusual for us to run hardware that
> long
> and have it used for 2 or 3 purposes in its lifetime.
>
> I've checked on the redhat.com certified list, but these items don't
> show up.  Does it list anything not supported, or is omission the only
> way to know it isn't supported?

Neither. It just means whether the hardware is certified or not. There
are a very very large set of hardware out there and trying to have a
definitive list would be impossible to come up with. In general for
these sorts of items you need to look at the following:

1) Can you get BIOS updates from the manufacturer. These may fix many issues.
2) Do you really need EL6 for this old of hardware. [Sadly most
hardware these days is considered obsolete after 4 years by the
original manufacturer and no longer supported by them for newer OS's]

>
> --Donald
>
>
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>



-- 
Stephen J Smoogen.
"The core skill of innovators is error recovery, not failure avoidance."
Randy Nelson, President of Pixar University.
"Let us be kind, one to another, for most of us are fighting a hard
battle." -- Ian MacLaren