Fedora Core 3 Crashes During Installation

[jdow]

From: "Bernard Barton" <bfb21 at comcast.net>

> While attempting to upgrade a FC2 installation on my
> Dell Dimension 4600, I reach the point where it says
> "Transferring image to hard drive", then, after the
> next message, "Preparing RPM installation", anaconda
> crashes after completing about 12% of the installation.
> I also noticed the following warning during installing:
> 
>   warning: package kernel = 2.6.9-1.667 was already added, replacing
>   with kernel <= 2.6.9-1.667
> 
> This occurred twice in graphical install mode, and
> once in text mode.  I'm using the DVD media, and
> the checksum passed:

I managed to get it installed after about 5 crashed installations.
DiskDruid aka DiskDestroyer will not allow me to work with existing
partition labels. So of course it managed to find a way to conflict
if I tried to set the mountpoint by label or by normal "/boot". I
had to sneak in and relabel the partitions on hdb and wipe the labels
on hda. I also discovered a way Grubby Grub could find the previous
installation's kernel instead of the one it should have found even
though I reformatted the partition mounted as /boot.

Once I got it up I discovered I had to use Cyrus stuff. It is fine
for a large server installation. For this office there are two
people with custom SpamAssassin installs. (Loren does some SARE
work. So we MUST train individually and we MUST be able to run
our own rule sets.) I also need WU's IMAP so that I can do some
crazy SpamAssassin training modes with the easy to read mbox
format. (We both use OutlookExpress for convenience reasons.
Most of my professional work is with that state of Washington
OS. Hey - it's $$$$. I've dabbled in Linux for over 5 years now.
I've even gotten in some kernel hacking.)

As a result of the generally unfavorable episode of a wasted day
trying to get FC3 working I'm about to utterly abandon RedHat and
Fedora. For all the four disks delivered it seems to be remarkably
rigid about what it will and will not do due to the choices of
packages for important subsystems, such as email.

It's interesting that I did not manage to find your problem. So
probably it is a DVD upgrade issue. I certainly found a lot of
others. Like, why can't I find out what a package that I might
want to install or might not really is all about? Old RedHat 9
installs and Mandrake installs will tell me what the package
is when I click on it even without selecting it. Fedora 3 will
not. Why? Why is DiskDruid so limited that it cannot display
existing labels and preserve them while using the proper
mount point designations instead of getting confused? (Of course,
this was the second disk. So I'd labeled things "//" for the root
partition, "//boot" for the /boot partition and so forth. That
hopelessly confused the installer. Of course, it's failure to tell
me what it was going to do inspired a massive lack of confidence.

And here I'd decided to give Fedora 3 a try after toughing it out
on 9 for a long time now since the traffic in here seemed to indicate
FC3 was nice and clean for operation and install. It sure isn't.

{O.O}   Joanne Dow said that.