Suggestion for some install problems

Schuthrax

If you look way deep in the message archive, you'll see a posting by me whining that my machine crashed when installing. Well, after about my seventh time installing, choosing different file system types (XFS, ext3, ext2,) fooling with /etc/make.conf (-march=i686, -cpu=i686,) I was at my wits end! (Actually I should point out that originally I had the bas system up and running and trying to compile KDE was where it all went to hell.)

Sometimes the machine would lock up when installing the base. I thought this was really weird since the compiler used to build the gcc that would be used to build the kernel should have been a plain vanilla, run-on-anything compile. Well, I don't know how, but eventually, with enough tries, it compiled. But I still had that original problem I talked about.

This led me to put the HD in another machine, start it up, and complete the install. After all, I figured, I'm compiling for i686, which both machines are, so it shouldn't matter which one did the compiling. Anyway, it finished, I even compeleted the installation on this other machine.

But, when I first did that 'reboot' (last step of the install,) things went South again! During all those really neat start up messages about hda, hdb, etc... network cards, USB....<grind!> Hm, it died at USB!

So, I put the HD back in the first machine, I went into the BIOS and turned off all USB, and began a fresh install once more. This, amazingly enough, fixed all my problems and I was able to complete an install, complete the compilation of X11 and complete the compilation of KDE!

So, I figured after all my headaches, I'd just put this little bit of advice out there in case someone is noticing any strange problems. As of yet, I haven't turned USB back on, but I'll try it soon.

In case anyone is wondering, I'm running a SOYO KY7 Dragon Plus with an Athlon 1800XP and 512MB of PC2100 DDR RAM. The only other card in there right now is an old Matrox G400.

Schuthrax

klieber · Posted: Wed Apr 24, 2002 1:26 am Post subject:

Thanks for the suggestion (but it might be better in the "Gentoo Suggestions" forum.)

Regarding your USB issues; there are two primary USB controllers that linux supports -- OHCI and UHCI. Did you try both in your kernel config? If you've got the wrong one, that *might* be causing your problem.

Just a thought.

--kurt
_________________
The problem with political jokes is that they get elected

Schuthrax · Posted: Wed Apr 24, 2002 1:45 am Post subject:

Ah, you see my problem occurred long before I got a chance to select anything. Some of the locking up started during the initial emerging of the system, where it build gcc and the like. That went flawlessly once I disabled USB in the BIOS.

I did include both USB controllers once I was able to get to the make menuconfig again, so I'm all set to turn the USB in the BIOS on and see what happens!

Schuthrax

fghellar · Posted: Wed Apr 24, 2002 3:59 am Post subject:

I have a Dragon Plus, Athlon XP1700, 384Mb PC2100. All 6 USB ports are enabled in BIOS, and I didn't have any problems installing Gentoo...
_________________
| www.gentoo.org | www.tldp.org | www.google.com |

Schuthrax · Posted: Wed Apr 24, 2002 6:55 pm Post subject:

Thanks for the reply fghellar. That makes me wonder what it was about my system that would give me problems.

Have you installed any newer BIOSes? Have you tweaked your BIOS settings at all? Like setting Turbo mode, or performing any overclocking?

Schuthrax

handsomepete · Posted: Wed Apr 24, 2002 7:36 pm Post subject:

I could've been imagining it, but I had what seems to be an 'undocumented' problem w/ USB on those Dragon boards. On the two that I've had both of them did something funky with the ports and would disable them all in the bios randomly of its own free will. After the latest bios upgrade everything's fine, and I haven't really had the urge to try and recreate it. Dunno if it's related, but just something I noticed...

fghellar · Posted: Thu Apr 25, 2002 3:19 am Post subject: