Stop Microsoft
Miscellaneous => Technical Support => Topic started by: H_TeXMeX_H on 4 May 2006, 22:03
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To start off, I'm now looking for a new more reliable distro that can actually recognize my HDD controller or HDD, whichever it may be. I suppose I'll try both Gentoo and Slackware next.
Ok, so the problem is the new FC5 kernel (kernel i686 2.6.16-1.2107_FC5) fails to boot at all, the system stops responding only displaying an X as a mouse cursor. Interestingly I can still use the mouse to move the X around the screen, but that's about it (Ctrl Alt F1 fails to do anything as well ... maybe X server fails to start ?). It's not a major problem as I could just stick with the current kernel and it runs just fine. I feel that Fedora in general has some major problems ... or maybe the crack Red Hat team is somehow a little careless in their testing of a new kernel before release.
Also: SELinux is OFF completely. This problem is NOT due to the nvidia driver, for I have removed it and it still won't boot. The previous kernel boots just fine with or wo/ nvidia driver.
P.S. I suppose I could start a new bug at bugzilla.redhat.com ... but the last one I started was never resolved or ansvered in any meaningful way so ... fuck it.
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Debian :)
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I tried Debian, but it wouldn't install :( ... failed to recognize either the HDD or HDD controller ... the installer freezes:
http://www.microsuck.com/forums/showpost.php?p=112712&postcount=12 (http://www.microsuck.com/forums/showpost.php?p=112712&postcount=12)
http://www.microsuck.com/forums/showpost.php?p=112738&postcount=16
http://www.microsuck.com/forums/showthread.php?t=10256 (http://www.microsuck.com/forums/showthread.php?t=10256)
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There is somthing wrong with your motherboard if everything has problems with your IDE controller
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Not everything ... Fedora recognizes it ... and it's a laptop, so fixing the motherboard is not trivial. Is there a way to check my mobo integrity ?
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This doesn't sound like a kernel issue to me. I doubt that the hard disk controller is messed up, but it's possible. It REALLY sounds like X is messed up.
You should boot FC5 up in console mode. At the GRUB screen, edit the boot line for FC5's kernel. Add
linux 3
to the boot arguments. Not sure if I remember where, but I think it should be right after the kernel. For example
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.16-1.2096_FC4 linux 3 ro root=LABEL=/ quiet
if not, no harm done, try again and put linux 3 at the end.
This boots you into console mode. You can see if everything is working. Log in. See if X works with "startx." If it hangs, kill it with Ctrl-Alt-Backspace, see the error messages on the console, and go fix the X configuration.
Console mode will also let you /sbin/lsmod and find out what kernel module is needed for this hard disk controller, so you can force the other distros to load it, if you so desire.
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I have fedora on another computer, didn't have much problem with it. But no mention of it, what's wrong with ubuntu? Some people seem to hate it. I don't know why, there's nothing wrong with it, other than the stupid name. The claim that it's any "easier" than the rest is just hype though. They're all easy if you have the time and desire to get into it. But enough babbling.
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I just tried Gentoo and well 2 things:
1) I also get the MP-BIOS bug ... this makes me think my BIOS is way outdated ... sadly I cannot upgrade it because there is no upgrade for it :( I checked
2) It gives me an error when trying to install it saying that it cannot recognize HDD partition format. The format happens to be LVM2 ... could that be the reason other installers have a problem with it ?
When I have time I'll mess around with the grub config a bit and get more info on why the new kernel won't boot ... hope it doesn't do something bad like last time I messed with it.
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Surely you must've known it's LVM? Unless Fedora or something set that up at install time (didn't know it did).
http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/LVM-HOWTO/index.html
http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/lvm2.xml (found that while googling)
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Actually, I know what the source of the problem is now. The newer kernel actually fixes the system timer bug on my desktop, but breaks the BIOS compatibilty on my laptop ... looks like I gotta keep a legacy kernel for the laptop, or update the BIOS (not possible cuz there is no new update :( )