Re: Redhat 9 Hang on Boot

[Dean Axene <daxene cox net>]

Brian C. Volk wrote:

> I recently installed RH9 and had the same problem... I installed using a
> USB keyboard.  I switched to a PS2 keyboard and RH9 installed just
> fine.  Hope this helps.
>
> Brian Volk 
>
>
>
> On Sat, 2003-09-27 at 14:40, Bob McClure Jr wrote:
>
> > On Sat, Sep 27, 2003 at 12:26:11AM -0500, Dean Axene wrote:
> >
> > > I'm currently running RH 7.3.  I recently purchased RH 9. My first 
> > > attempt was to do an upgrade. The installation was done with no problem, 
> > > but on initial boot up the system hung up. I then tried to install to a 
> > > clean disk with the same result. I then did about 8 or 10 more 
> > > installations using different partitioning and system configurations 
> > > with exactly the same result. My computer is a home brew, but it more 
> > > than meets the prerequisites for installing RH 9. I have reviewed the 
> > > certified hardware list and I find nothing there that should cause this 
> > > failure. Booting from floppy makes no difference.
> > >
> > > Watching the screen during boot up, I can see that it gets through the 
> > > very early portion OK. After hanging, I can read what's on my screen and 
> > > can see that it recognizes my floppy, my 2 hard drives and my 2 cdrom 
> > > drives, but then hangs on the very next item. Since the system is hung, 
> > > I can't see what that item is, and since I never get booted, I can't 
> > > read any of the log files.
> > >
> > > I'm at a loss as to how to proceed, and would certainly appreciate any help.
> > >
> > > Dean Axene
> > See if you can boot to single user or rescue mode to read the logs.
> > See Chapter 9 of The Fine Manual
> >
> > http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/linux/RHL-9-Manual/custom-guide/
> >
> > for details.
> >
> > Cheers,
Hi Brian,

Thanks for your suggestions. Booting to single user or rescue produced 
no improvement. Last night I did an errorless install on my number 1 
machine which is very similar but not identical to the one which won't 
boot, and this one boots and runs just fine. I have become quite 
convinced that I have some piece of hardware that is simply not 
compatible with RH 9. I noted with interest your experience with the USB 
keyboard. I think my problem is similar, but with some other piece of 
hardware. Incidentally my keyboard is PS2.

Is there some simple way to test for hardware compatibility? Or is it 
just by trial and error? I'm a bit suspicious of my video card, which is 
an NVIDIA card, because of comments in some of the documentation, but 
while installing, the card is found and identified by probing, except it 
gets the video memory wrong, and my screen is perfect all the way 
through installation, including the final screen where you choose color 
depth and resolution.

One other problem I have experienced which ate up a lot of time. I used 
the graphical installer for three of my tries. It allows no choice as to 
where the boot loader goes. It puts it in the master boot record of the 
1st physical drive. That chewed up my windows boot record once, my whole 
C: drive once, and everything on the first drive once. Using the text 
installer allows the linux boot loader to go on my second (linux) drive 
and avoids the problems with the other operating system. Fortunately I 
had good backups!

I'll study Redhat's hardware compatibilty docs again, but if you have 
any fresh ideas there, I'd appreciate hearing them.

Thanks again,

Dean