fedora 12 install woes
in [UK Linux]
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From: Jim Price on 9 Jan 2010 20:08 davesurrey wrote: > "YaZoR" <a@a> wrote in message > news:xvydnedzGO2rVNXWnZ2dnUVZ7oqdnZ2d(a)pipex.net... >> On 09/01/2010 16:22, davesurrey wrote: >>> The HDD on my test PC gave up this seek so I have been installing a bunch >>> of >>> distros used for testing. >>> All went well except for trying to install Fedora 12 (x86 version). >>> >>> I used the very same Live CD that I had previously used for 2 installs, >>> which allows me to do an install to HDD but in both cases it reports a >>> kernel error and refuses to get past the stage of updating the software. >>> >>> I did a new download of the live CD but same results...kernel panic. Now >>> after a reboot it even refuses to boot up ...again error reported is >>> kernel >>> panic. >>> >>> I have also downloaded the DVD and this would not even boot without >>> setting >>> all BIOS boot options to CD. Then the install crashed 3 times at various >>> stages before I gave up. >>> >>> Questions to those who have experience of Fedora 12. >>> >>> 1. from Google it seems kernel panics and fedora are common. Is there a >>> way >>> around for this? I can't imagine such a prestigious distro really is >>> this >>> bad. >>> 2. Anyone any experience of using the DVD for an install? It does seem >>> second rate and a bit "dodgy" compared with the Live CD >>> 3. I saw somewhere on my Google travels that "fedora needs a separate >>> boot >>> partition". Is this the case with version 12? I don't remember having >>> this >>> on the previous install which booted okay. >>> >>> FWIW I have fedora on primary partition sdb1 formatted as ext4 and booted >>> by >>> grub2 in Ubuntu 9.10 >>> Fairly old K7S5A mobo with Athlon xp 1800 cpu and 1GB ddr2 ram. >>> All other distros work just fine in this PC. >>> >>> I'd really like to try fedora 12 and don't want to give up but it isn't >>> helping itself. >>> Thanks for any help. >>> >>> Dave >>> >>> >> My experience with the K7S5A board is that it is the biggest piece of wank >> manufactured. I had nothing but problems with Win2K/XP, and various >> version of Linux many many years ago. I'd bin it. > > This is a thread on FEDORA not the mobo. So why mention the mobo? > As I said it's a test PC and it's good to test things not just on bleeding > edge stuff but older kit, > especially that which, rightly or wrongly, was very popular at the time. > It runs all the other OS's just fine. I've found the k7s5a works better with modern distros if you disable any unused hardware in the BIOS (game port, modem, serial, parallel and floppy spring to mind), load the safe settings and enable the USB support options. If they aren't there, your BIOS is old. The most recent one is dated near the end of 2003, and was released at the beginning of 2004. Previous ones had more bugs and didn't cope with USB devices very well. Sadly, updating them can have its own problems, but on the bright side, it is almost impossible to brick if you have a floppy drive. The k7s5a does not support DDR2, just SDRAM or DDR, so you don't have DDR2 in it or it would not work at all. > Okay anyone with any knowledge of the orig question please? 1. is too vague to answer. It amounts to "I have a kernel panic, what's wrong?". 2. No, I don't have the DVD. 3. No, That was Fedora 11. The k7s5a can have all sorts of trouble depending on what graphics card and other hardware you have plugged into it, and there will be some as the basic version is USB v1 and doesn't have a built in graphics or network card. AGP is 4x, and newer 8x cards can cause trouble despite the manufacturer claiming they are 4x compatible. A 4x/8x Nvidia 5200 with Ubuntu/Debian caused me large amounts of grief with that mobo, so what graphics card you have is probably worth knowing. Also, which version of the motherboard? - there were at least 3. I have version 3.1 boards, which is the one which supports athlonXP processors. If you have a version 1.1 board, what YaZoR said applies. My test machine is also a k7s5a (actually I have three) - I'll try fedora 12 on it if you find my suggestions don't work, as I think you are being a little to quick to dismiss hardware problems. I'm not as dismissive of the k7s5a as YaZoR, as although it has its issues, I have normally got mine to play ball eventually, and I've not had any actual reliability problems with them. The earliest BIOS update I have for mine dates from January 2002, so they've been going a long time. -- JimP
From: davesurrey on 9 Jan 2010 21:27 "Jim Price" <d1version(a)hotmail.com> wrote in message news:hib9ai$e5f$1(a)news.eternal-september.org... > I've found the k7s5a works better with modern distros if you disable any > unused hardware in the BIOS (game port, modem, serial, parallel and floppy > spring to mind), load the safe settings and enable the USB support > options. If they aren't there, your BIOS is old. The most recent one is > dated near the end of 2003, and was released at the beginning of 2004. > Previous ones had more bugs and didn't cope with USB devices very well. > Sadly, updating them can have its own problems, but on the bright side, it > is almost impossible to brick if you have a floppy drive. The k7s5a does > not support DDR2, just SDRAM or DDR, so you don't have DDR2 in it or it > would not work at all. > > > The k7s5a can have all sorts of trouble depending on what graphics card > and other hardware you have plugged into it, and there will be some as the > basic version is USB v1 and doesn't have a built in graphics or network > card. AGP is 4x, and newer 8x cards can cause trouble despite the > manufacturer claiming they are 4x compatible. A 4x/8x Nvidia 5200 with > Ubuntu/Debian caused me large amounts of grief with that mobo, so what > graphics card you have is probably worth knowing. Also, which version of > the motherboard? - there were at least 3. I have version 3.1 boards, which > is the one which supports athlonXP processors. If you have a version 1.1 > board, what YaZoR said applies. > > My test machine is also a k7s5a (actually I have three) - I'll try fedora > 12 on it if you find my suggestions don't work, as I think you are being a > little to quick to dismiss hardware problems. I'm not as dismissive of the > k7s5a as YaZoR, as although it has its issues, I have normally got mine to > play ball eventually, and I've not had any actual reliability problems > with them. The earliest BIOS update I have for mine dates from January > 2002, so they've been going a long time. > Thanks Jim for your comprehensive post. The mobo is I believe the 3/27/03 release. system bios dated 3/27/03 video bios 10/22/03 The modem, games port, midi were already disabled but I disabled serial and parallel as well. You are of course correct in that my RAM is not DDR2. My typo. It has 2 IDE drives Maxtor 6Y080LU (80GB) sda and Maxtor 6Y120P0 (120GB) sdb plus 2 dvd writers HT-DT-ST-DVDRAM GSA-4163B and SONY RW DRU-500A I have disabled these to no avail. plus nVidia GeForce FX5200 video card. The fedora install is on sdb1 and I'm booting using grub2 on Ubuntu 9-10 sitting on sda3. I have tried using the grub stanza that ubuntu generates plus added my own manually. No difference. The boot sequence stops with messages... " vfs cannot open root device sdb1 or unknown block.... please apend a correct "root=" boot option. Kernel panic....not syncing :VFS : unable to mount root fs on unknown block." However grub certainly has "root=sdb1" in it as well as the UUID. If you can get yours to run without kernel panics then it would certainly point to a h/w issue somewhere on mine that is not affecting the other13 distros on here. And also confirm how sensitive fedora seems to be. Cheers Dave
From: crn on 9 Jan 2010 21:41 davesurrey <dave(a)antispam.invalid> wrote: > [snip] > Thanks for this. > Did a memest86 and found no errors. > HDD is new and is only a week old. > All caps look ok but who knows?? > PSU volts seem okay. But is the new HDD good ?. I am always suspicious of the last new item installed, test it. Do you have a Solaris machine?, the Solaris format command has some very nice disk testing functions. You can run format from the install disk if you boot with the -s option. Slackware install disks also have an option to format each partition when creating the filesystems which does a somewhat less thorough test but should show up the worst offenders.
From: davesurrey on 9 Jan 2010 22:01 <crn(a)NOSPAM.netunix.com> wrote in message news:hibeo2$g2e$1(a)news.albasani.net... > davesurrey <dave(a)antispam.invalid> wrote: >> > [snip] >> Thanks for this. >> Did a memest86 and found no errors. >> HDD is new and is only a week old. >> All caps look ok but who knows?? >> PSU volts seem okay. > > But is the new HDD good ?. > I am always suspicious of the last new item installed, test it. > > Do you have a Solaris machine?, the Solaris format command has some > very nice disk testing functions. You can run format from the > install disk if you boot with the -s option. > Slackware install disks also have an option to format each partition > when creating the filesystems which does a somewhat less thorough test > but should show up the worst offenders. > No don't have a Solaris to hand. Interesting about Slackware though. I should not have said new. What I should have explained is that I had this problem of kernel panics with the older HDD. I have replaced this with another HDD (that's why I referered to it as new.) In other words it does the same with both HDDs so I doubt it is HDD related. But one never knows. So I'll swop back the "old" HDD tomorrow to see it I can get it working that way. Sorry for the confusion. Dave
From: davesurrey on 9 Jan 2010 22:04
"davesurrey" <dave(a)antispam.invalid> wrote in message news:4b494308$0$2477$db0fefd9(a)news.zen.co.uk... > > <crn(a)NOSPAM.netunix.com> wrote in message > news:hibeo2$g2e$1(a)news.albasani.net... >> davesurrey <dave(a)antispam.invalid> wrote: >>> >> [snip] >>> Thanks for this. >>> Did a memest86 and found no errors. >>> HDD is new and is only a week old. >>> All caps look ok but who knows?? >>> PSU volts seem okay. >> >> But is the new HDD good ?. >> I am always suspicious of the last new item installed, test it. >> >> Do you have a Solaris machine?, the Solaris format command has some >> very nice disk testing functions. You can run format from the >> install disk if you boot with the -s option. >> Slackware install disks also have an option to format each partition >> when creating the filesystems which does a somewhat less thorough test >> but should show up the worst offenders. >> > No don't have a Solaris to hand. Interesting about Slackware though. > I should not have said new. What I should have explained is that I had > this problem > of kernel panics with the older HDD. I have replaced this with another HDD > (that's why I referered to it as new.) > In other words it does the same with both HDDs so I doubt it is HDD > related. > But one never knows. So I'll swop back the "old" HDD tomorrow to see it I > can get it working that way. > Sorry for the confusion. > Dave > And to avoid any further confusion...the reason I swopped HDDs was because the old one started to give signs of failure. HDD led on continually sometimes. Would right itself after being left for a while but could not trust it. So if I can get it to work again tomorrow it may tell me something about the "new" disk. |