[Rule-list] Miniconda dump available online

[C David Rigby]

On Thursday 26 September 2002 12:44 am, Michael Fratoni wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> On Wednesday 25 September 2002 12:39 pm, C David Rigby wrote:
> > Cool.  I noticed also that there are some things that I didn't do per
> > the instructions (yes, I have heard of such things as manuals, but...
> > {8->) so I will go back and try this a bit differently before I start
> > adjusting hardware, etc.
>
> Hi David,
> When you try again (with the instructions in hand) ;)
> Let me know how it goes, please. There have been a lot of reports on the
> Valhalla list for Red Hat 7.3 reporting segfaults during install on older
> hardware, and I haven't had any time to look at this with regards to the
> miniconda installer. The miniconda installer should behave much like the
> normal Red Hat install, only in text mode, with fewer options. It does
> use the same kernel, modules, rpms, and build process as the standard
> anaconda installer.
>
> Which Red Hat version are you trying to install? Miniconda v-0.7.35 and
> v-0.7.4 are for the 7.3 release, Versions <= 0.7.3 are for the 7.2
> release. That right there could account for some of your difficulties.
>

mincondas 0.7.4 and 0.7.3x fail too early in the process (during /sbin/loader) 
for the CDs to be accessed.  I only really get into the installer with 
miniconda-0.7.2 and then I use the RH7.2 CDs.

> Since I've been away from this for a while, I'm going to attempt to find
> time this weekend to put together another build of miniconda.
>
> - --
> - -Michael
>

Michael,
	I have tried several more times without success, in the following fashions.  
You may want to just skip to the bottom to see my conclusion before plowing 
through all these details.

1)
	Discovering that I needed the updates diskette (this was the reading 
instructions part) I attempted the miniconda-0.7.2 install again.  I did 
reach the point where I was presented with the installation options, 
including the Low Memory system, which I had not seen before.  After 
resolving dependencies, the installer crashed again in a very similar fashion 
(I have another anacdump.txt available from this install attempt, if someone 
would like for me to send it).

2)
	I tried again, this time the difference being that I chose a check for bad 
blocks during partition formatting.  Recall that I had previously used the 
RH6.2 installer to access fdisk and partition the drives, and they were 
recognized by Disk Druid under miniconda-0.7.2 as type "linux native" and not 
as ext2.  I made it to the same point as (1) above, but this time the failure 
was a bit different.  On the main console I got the message
	Message: An error occured while searching for bad blocks on sda1 (this is my 
/var partition).  This problem is serious, and install cannot continue.
	Other consoles showed the following:
	F4 showed lots of "Error -3 while decompressing"
	F5 showed "badblocks: error while loading shared libraries: badblocks: symbol 
free, version GLIBC_2.0 not defined in file libc.so.6 with link time 
reference"

3)
	As a sanity check, I tried RH6.2.  It also failed in the same fashion as the 
anaconda failures that provided the previously mentioned dumps, at about the 
same point, which was after chosing the type of installation.  It did not 
provide an option for a dump, only to debug.

So now I am suspecting some sort of subtle hardware problem, since installing 
RH6.2 in 32MB of RAM has never been an issue before.  The machine is almost 
ten years old, afterall.

4)
	Trying to simplify things, I removed the external 2GB Fujitsu SCSI HDD, and 
tried miniconda-0.7.4 again.  But it still failed as previously:  the last 
console message from the installer is after the ramdisk loads, and after the 
line:
running /sbin/loader
one gets the message:
"install exited abnormally -- received signal 11"
and then the system shutsdown gracefully.

5)
	With the external SCSI drive removed, I tried miniconda-0.7.2 again, with bad 
block checking enable for the partition formatting, and the installer failed 
at the "reading packages" stage with a signal 11 abnormal termination.  Hmmm.  
That's a new one.

6)
	Still without the external SCSI drive, I tried miniconda-0.7.2 again, 
planning to forego the bad block checking.  The process abnorally terminated 
on signal 11 again, well before reaching the Disk Druid portion of 
installation.


CONCLUSION
----------------

Before we spend a lot of time debugging the software, it's time to verify the 
hardware.  The failures are not following a reasonable, reproduceable 
pattern.  So, I will:
1) Remove the SCSI controller and NIC, and disconnect the SCSI CD-ROM drive.

2) Run some testing software I have against the hardware for a 24-hour period.  
It will give the motherboard, memory and IDE hard drive a thourough workout.

3) Re-initialize my diskettes and recreate them.

4) If I am still unable to install at that point, there are a couple of other 
tricks available: I have yet another Adaptec 1522A controller, and I have 
also some other SCSI controllers to try.  If all else fails, I can try again 
with an IDE CD-ROM drive in place of the SCSI drive.  Of course, there are 
other old PCs as well...yes this place is a real computer junk yard!  {8->

It will take a while to carry out all of this, and I have an exam coming up so 
I need to pay some attention to school.  But I will summarize the results 
once I have had a chance to run through these tasks.

CDRigby
cr8s at virginia.edu


_______________________________________________
Rule Project HOME PAGE:  http://www.rule-project.org/rule/
Original Rule Development Site http://savannah.gnu.org/projects/rule/Rule-list at mail.freesoftware.fsf.org
http://mail.freesoftware.fsf.org/mailman/listinfo/rule-list