A long, strange FC3 problem

[Robert L Cochran]

This advice is taken from the Release Notes for the x86_64 arch. I don't 
know if it is also in the Release Notes for x86. But it looks to me like 
your system qualifies here:


      Installation-Related Issues

    *

      Certain hardware configurations (particularly those with LCD
      displays) may experience problems while starting the Fedora Core
      installation program. In these instances, restart the
      installation, and add the "*nofb*" option to the boot command line.

      NOTE: Chinese, Japanese, and Korean graphical installations
      started using the "*nofb*" option will start in English, and then
      switch to the appropriate language once the graphical phase of the
      installation process begins.

    *

      Serial mice are known to be inoperative during installation.
      However, there are indications that serial mice work properly in X
      after the installation has completed. Refer to bug 119474 for more
      information:

      http://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=119474




Summer Brooks wrote:

>Bear with me... this is a long explanation of a strange problem
>with my home machine.
>
>I have an issue with FC3 with my monitor locking up.  Actually,
>there are two separate issues, but while the first is one I can
>work around, the other one isn't.
>
>System: generic Intel P4 2.4GHz
>Monitor: Viewsonic VX900-2 19" LCD
>Graphics card: nVidia GeForce 440 MX
>using the SVGA interface on the monitor, since this card doesn't
>have DVI output
>
>First issue is my monitor locks up when switching from text
>mode to graphical mode during boot up.  Locks up to the point
>where none of the buttons work, not even the power button...
>I have to unplug it to reset it.  It happens once when switching
>from text to the graphical startup screen, then again when it
>switches from that screen to the login panel.  Once it's plugged
>back in, the login panel is there, waiting for me, and I can login
>just like normal.
>
>This never happened during the year-plus it was running RH9...
>has anyone else seen behavior like this?
>
>The other problem is harder to pin down, but similar in symptoms.
>Initially, I'd just done an upgrade from RH9 to FC3, and afterwards,
>applied all the updates available at the time.  Within about 30
>minutes of setting up my desktop, firing up a browser or 3 and
>my favorite email client, exmh, my desktop locked up.
>
>The mouse could still move across the screen, but I couldn't select
>a terminal window or application and work in it.  At first, I thought
>it was a problem with Firefox, since I'd been playing on a WordPress
>data entry screen for a blog I help out with, so I switched back to
>Mozilla after a hard reboot.
>
>The problem didn't happen within that first half-hour, but I also
>hadn't fired up exmh that session.  Nothing happened for a while,
>and I chalked it up to being a Firefox glitch.
>
>The next morning, when I turned the monitor on to continue working,
>it was locked up in the middle of a screensaver design, and I started
>the process all over again, with the lock-ups happening so frequently
>while actually working that I did a fresh install of FC3 and waited
>to see what would happen.  I even changed xscreensaver to do a single
>non-3D, non-GL pattern, just to be on the safe side.
>
>To make a long debugging story short, for two days, the system didn't
>lock up while I used Firefox or Mozilla.  I added a RH9 rpm of
>nmh-1.0.4-20 and used the terminal commands to do email for a day,
>and that was fine.
>
>Tuesday, I added exmh-2.7.0 from it's tarball, and used it in
>conjunction with Firefox, and had no problems over the course of a
>few hours, including repeating things I'd been doing in Firefox before
>when I'd experienced a lockup.   I thought "problem solved"...
>
>On Wednesday, I added the RH9 rpms sharutils-4.2.1-14 and metamail-2.7-28
>(only after failing to get an FC3 rpm built from metamail-2.7-28.src.rpm
>or metamail-2.7-29.src.rpm), to get the full MIME related functionality
>in exmh.   Within an hour of adding those rpms, I started to experience
>the desktop lockups again, even when not running exmh.
>
>What makes things worse is that I did the exact same procedure -- an
>upgrade from RH9 to FC3 -- on my system at work, and everything still
>worked fine, the exmh and everything.  The system at work is a 2.8GHz
>Dell Precision, with 17" LCD, but it's using the DVI connector from
>whatever video card is in there (I think it's a newer nVidia, but I'm
>not 100% sure right now).
>
>So color me stumped.   Right now, I've removed the metamail rpm from
>my home machine to see if that resolves the lockups, but if it does,
>that makes exmh crippled, which makes me an irked camper.
>
>I'm open to suggestions here.  I'd be happy to get metamail built
>from source and see if it locks things up again even with a native
>build, but the source rpm build vomits, and I haven't been able to
>find sourcecode source for the current version.
>
>
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Summer Brooks, WildHorse.com Staff      I will choose a Path that's clear
>brooksj at wildhorse dot com		I will choose Free Will
>
>  
>