Re: Debian installation hangs
On 12 Dec 98, at 10:24, David Stern wrote:
> > Yes, I was trying again last nigt, and waited for 20 minutes or so
> > without result. And the Master/Slave jumpers are definitely configured
> > correctly.
>
> I thought of something the other day.. umm.. I know it's generally
> considered somewhat of a nuisance, but if your mainboard is made by a
> reputable manufactuer like Asus, then you may have a "flash" programmable
> system bios. These are upgradable using special software, and a lot of
> times there are bugs that need to be ironed out, as well as many added
> features that can be obtained by upgrading the system bios. Now the down
> side: if you don't follow the instructions EXACTLY, then you can put your
> box in an unbootable state, necessitating taking your bios to Radio Shack
> or somewhere they can reset it for about as much as it costs to buy a new
> one ($30). I've upgraded my system bios about three times over the past
> two years since I built this box, and there have been numerous bug fixes
> for flaky ide drivers, added support for zip and LS120 disks, I can boot
> off my cdrom now (I found out by accident when I stuck my first debian
> cdrom in the drive and rebooted), I can boot from my scsi controller
> first, USB support, .. You may or may not want to do this, but it is
> something that at least has potential for correcting your problems, not to
> mention adding more features, although there are inherent risks. If you
> have an Asus (Dell used to use Asus, I don't know if they still do) see
> these links:
<snip>
Yeah, I had the same idea yesterday. Dell are pretty good about providing
BIOS updates, and documenting how to use them. So I've now upgraded
from version A04 to A06, and - unfortunately - it made no difference to
Linux (although Windows went through a massive spate of re-detecting
and installing various system devices)
> > Well, at the moment I haven't managed to make a Slink disk anyway. And
> > after a bit of searching through the list archive, this seems to be a
> > common problem. It does seem that it will solve the problem when
> > released, but I'm in Impatient Mode right now, and now sure I can manage
> > to wait a few weeks...
>
> I understand. I'll start looking at boot disk kernel stuff. I'm not sure
> how soon I'll have a replacement image, but when I do I'll just send you
> to my webpage (a little in need of maintenance).
> http://weber.u.washington.edu/~dstern/
> My estimate would be sometime after late Sunday, US Pacific time, which
> makes that early Monday for you. We'll see how it goes.
Following another thread on this list, I got hold of a 1440k image for a
Slink boot disk. This one behaved exactly like the Hamm disk, hanging
on the "md driver". However, the md driver version on the Slink disk is
0.36.3 which is the same version as on the working RedHat boot disk and
CD. So this is obviously more complicated than just a single driver not
dealing properly with my hardware. Not at all the result I was looking for.
> > Tried the Tecra disk, same result.
>
> I looked into the Tecra disk and I saw it's primarily just a zimage vs.
> bzimage kernel deal. bzimage is a higher level of compression, so I kind
> of figured that might not do much for you, but it was still a good try,
> because sometimes there are unanticipated side effects.
>
> > I don't remember seeing this as an option last time I was in the BIOS
> > setup. But there might be a manual jumper setting. I'll have to look.
>
> I doubt plug n play is a jumper setting (although anything is
> possible). In my bios, there's an option named "PnP OS". Sometimes that
> will improperly initialize PnP devices, and Linux will choke, so it's best
> to disable it. In my case I haven't figured out if that means it should
> be on or off. :)
Just had anotherr look, and turning off PnP just isn't an option, either in
the BIOS or on the motherboard.
> > Er, well it was actually 70, but I'll try 65 and we'll see if that
> > helps. By the way, despite the "been there, done that" tone of this
> > e-mail, I'm grateful for the effort you've made. If you can think of
> > any other suggestions, please keep them coming.
>
> I didn't count, but whatever you did worked great. I'll let you decide on
> the bios. The first time I did it, I was terrified, but now it's kind of
> like compiling a kernel, just another ten minute job. I do encourage you
> to be extremely careful if you flash your bios, though.
>
> I'm a little curious, although it may not matter, but is there anything
> "untraditional" about your mainboard. By taht, I mean, is the video or
> the scsi controller, or the sound, or anything like that integrated into
> the mainboard? If so, and you're not using that device, you might try
> disabling that (not your video, though :). Sometimes this can be done in
> the bios, sometimes with jumpers. -- David
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> dstern@u.washington.edu
>
Nothing particulary unusual about the motherboard. I/O is integrated
(serial, parallel, IDE, floppy), but video and sound are on different cards,
and there's no SCSI at all. I tried booting with all I/O ports disabled and
sound card removed, but it didn't help.
I must admit to feeling completely lost now. I'm new to Linux, but not at
all new to software installation and compatibility issues. But I have been
working on the assumption all this week that this was something to do
with the md driver, and either updating the driver, or removing the
offending hardware, would solve the problem. Now it's clear that there's
something else specific to the Debian distribution that doesn't like my
hardware, so I'm not at all sure where to go from here.
Anyway, thanks for your time so far.
Mark
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