more info Re: [lug] wierd rh7.2 install failure

[Nate Duehr]

Kevin's note was right on... and I usually find when a machine is doing 
this 9/10 times it's the system RAM.

Linux is quite a bit more finickey about cheap RAM than others, it seems.

There's a program that will exercise the RAM heavily called memtest86 
that boots from a floppy image, and it's interesting to run and see 
where the problems lie, but when a machine starts segfaulting during a 
Linux install like that I usually start by:

- Turning off everything onboard on the motherboard that's not necessary 
or I can live without to get rid of strange interactions there, if even 
just temporarily.
- Pulling the RAM and leaving only one SIMM/DIMM/whatever your system 
uses in the machine so I'm only dealing with ONE possible bad stick.
- Removing any ISA cards that are trying to do Plug & Play junk which 
could be causing conflicts.
- Changing Plug & Play -- if it's on, turn it off, if it's off, turn it 
on... heh, sounds stupid but it works sometimes.  The Linux kernel is 
"smart" enough to deal with it in either mode.
- Turning off "turbo" stuff or anything strange in the BIOS that tries 
to speed up RAM access.  CAS Latency, etc... depending on motherboard.

That's all I can think of at the moment.  Let us know how it's going... 
if a little encouragement helps, I have run into three or four machines 
that exhibited similar issues to what you're describing, and eventually 
with enough fiddling, they're all running Linux now.

If you're really adventureous you may slap a different distro in there 
with a different kernel build and see if that distro loads.  You don't 
have to *keep* it, just as a test to see if something odd is compiled 
into RedHat's kernel that your hardware doesn't like.  Grab a SuSE or 
Debian disk from someone at the meeting or even and OLDER version of 
RedHat and see if it survives the install on that.

Also, there's always the ubiquitous Google search for "your hardware 
name" + problems + Linux + install ...

:-)

Nate, nate at natetech.com

p.s For those reading along as a completely off-topic item... I FINALLY 
found the ECC RAM upgrade for 64M for this laptop and I'm SOOOO happy. 
Ebay still comes through once in a while.  :-)

This is a Toshiba Portege 3015 (the same thing as the 3010) I bought 
years ago, and even though it's old and slow nowadays... it sure is nice 
to have the wireless ethernet card in it hackin' away here in the comfy 
chair downstairs!  Linux on 32M of RAM on this thing was really only 
usable on the console, but X runs relatively nicely now!  3 lbs. of 
fun... !  Even cooler was loading it a while back -- RH 7.2 loaded 
beautifully from a USB CD-RW drive after booting from floppy disk.

If you're looking for a relatively inexpensive laptop for Linux use, 
I've seen them on Ebay relatively cheap lately, and once in a while the 
RAM module shows up if you happen to find a 32M machine.  The RAM is in 
a proprietary package and is ECC RAM, and no one's making the 64M module 
anymore.  Lots of cheap 32M add-on's available, but finding the 64M one 
was an exercise in patience.  Nothing higher than the 64M add-on is 
available though, for those who would like monster amounts of RAM.  The 
system RAM built into the motherboard of 32M plus the add-on 64M is all 
ya get.

Super lightweight, decent screen, small keyboard, but hey... can't have 
everything!  The thing is barely an inch thick when it's closed!  :-)


luke p wrote:

> I went through again and this time said a 'signal 11' after the 'install 
> exited abnormally' what is that and what can be done?