Re:RedHat 7.1 hangs at "Starting kswapd" during boot

[Matt Drew <mdrew redhat com>]

> I chose specified that everything would be erased.  I assume
> that this means that all existing partitions would be destroyed
> an new ones created.  Screen messages seemed to support that.

Only the existing Linux ext2 partitions (0x83 and 0x82) are removed.
Anything else is left alone.

> Unfortunatly, I can't even boot to see what partitions exist,
> so I will have to go through the setup again (no big deal) and
> copy down what partitions are created with sizes and will let
> you know what I find.  (I guess I could boot in "rescue" mode
> from the CD and run fdisk to see.  I'll do that.

Yep.  The boot disk created during installation should help here as well
-- That's what it is there for.

> As an aside, the thing I find most humorous is that the installation
> session, which RUNS UNDER LINUX!, booted just fine and ran in
> a fully graphical mode.  I find it funny that the setup could
> boot, but the installation couldn't.

This is unusual but not unheard of.  There are a number of things that can
happen during installation that would cause this sort of a problem --
geometry mismatches on the disk (EZ-BIOS installed, running in lba32 mode,
etc)  being the primary culprit.  The installer kernel (SYSLINUX) is a
very cut down, very simple kernel designed for maximum compatibility and
small size. SYSLINUX is also used for the rescue environment, for the same
reasons.

Also, the 7.1 installer "cheats" big time when it comes to the graphical
display -- it runs in framebuffer mode, which will work on just about
anything.  This causes all sorts of confusion, because the previous
installers used a real X server, and so when the installation ran in
graphical mode you could assume the machine would too.  This is no longer
true.

Matt

-- 
Matt Drew
Peer Review team lead
Red Hat Consumer Services