Fedora Core 4, several install problems

From: Kenneth (jjjkkklll_at_cox.net)
Date: 09/11/05 

Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2005 13:38:40 -0700

I encountered several surprising problems trying to install FC4, and I was
sondering if anyone else had seen anything similar, or had a suggestion
for me.

I downloaded the 4 iso images, verified sha1sum, burned the first one to
CD, verified sha1sum of CD (I even checked it on two different machines,
to reduce the chance that marginal media was a problem)

I booted with the "text" and "askmethod" options. Text because the
default mode used was unreadable on my monitor, and askmethod because I
wanted to install from the iso images on disk, rather than wasting 3 more
CDs.

On the first attempt at install, the process hung with the progress bar on
14%, while installing one of the perl packages (I waited 2 hours to make
sure it was really hung). The second install attempt completed. There
was a message that could have been an error partway through, but most of
the words were off the screen so I don't know what it said, and it didn't
stop the process. When I tried to boot, it failed with a message that the
kernel was unable to open an initial console. I found that was because
there was no /dev/console present, or any other entries in /dev.

If this was some random machine, I would suspect a hardware issue causing
the first hang and the other install strangeness, but I have been using
this machine with a couple of different distributions for all my computing
needs, and it has been rock-solid. The only problems I have had were
those cause by me mis-configuring something.

The machine was given to me to do some contract work, so I don't know
exactly what it is. Its from Dell, with a 2.4GHz P4, 512MB memory.
Everything as it came from the factory, other than the 3c59x ethernet
board I added.

I hope I didn't lose anyone with the long post. I searched newsgroups and
the Fedora site, and didn't find posts from anyone who seemed to have the
same kind of problem.

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