Installation Probem : Kernel Panic - not syncing:

English Install/Boot/Login
1

Hi

I am trying to install 11.1, 32 bit via live cd on an not so old pc at my home having Via C3 733 Mhz, 384 MB RAM, 80 GB HDD, 15" CRT Monitor. I got the welcome and initial setup menu, after I start installation the setup gives me an error:

Kernel Panic - not syncing:Attempted to kill init!
clocksource tsc unstable (delta=xxxxxxxxxxx ns)

The xxxxxxxxxxxxx ns figure keeps on changing everytime.

I am already running Win2K Professional on the same machine. I have unpartitioned space of 40GB in my HDD. I have checked the MD5, optical media integrity, memory test, Hard disk bad sector verification etc. I am not very well known to linux, though I am quite comfortable with Windows and related technologies.

Any help would be appreciated.

Peeyush

2

> Any help would be appreciated.

are you absolutely certain you have good install media? (see part two,
steps two and six of http://tinyurl.com/6jwtg9)

what was the result when you ran the “firmware test” available from
the first green screen after booting the install media (see:
http://tinyurl.com/lws5cg)

and, did you perform a memory check (also available from the same
screen)…note, depending on your system it might need to run
several hours to discover an error…

this thread might be helpful (that “deConficter” poster was pretty
smart:-)

http://forums.opensuse.org/hardware/412261-kernel-panic.html

–
natural_pilot

3

peeyushd wrote:

> I am trying to install 11.1, 32 bit via live cd on an not so old pc at
> my home having Via C3 733 Mhz, 384 MB RAM, 80 GB HDD, 15" CRT Monitor. I
> got the welcome and initial setup menu, after I start installation the
> setup gives me an error:
>
> -Kernel Panic - not syncing:Attempted to kill init!
> clocksource tsc unstable (delta=xxxxxxxxxxx ns)-

Try botting the LiveCD with “acpi=off” and see how it goes…

Kernel Parameters for ACPI/APIC
http://en.opensuse.org/SDB:Kernel_Parameters_for_ACPI/APIC

Greetings,

–
Camaleón

4

Try adding this parameter on the installation menu screen (in the bar near the bottom):

pci=nomsi

There is a relatively recent technology called “message signal interrupts” (msi) which Via chips have known problems with. The above instructs the kernel to disable this feature.

5

Hi Everybody

Yes I have done the memory test with all the 10 test of memtest. It took about 3 hours to complete the test.

I have tried Failsafe setting which includes acpi=off and I have tried pci=nomsi also but the problem still persists.

Also the HDD verification I have done through chkdsk utility from Windows.

So anymore ideas… :expressionless:

Peeyush

6

> So anymore ideas… :expressionless:

if you put your Live CD in, and boot from it, will it boot up to a
usable system? and, then from there you are clicking on an Install
icon on the system’s desktop?

which Live CD do you have? (is it KDE or Gnome)?

did it come from http://software.opensuse.org/, or other?

are you absolutely certain that your install media is valid? (that is,
did you check the md5sum after downloading and before burning the
disk, and then again after the disk was burned? (see
http://tinyurl.com/6jwtg9)

i ask because the situation you describe is VERY unusual…

oh, and the way: it is impossible to do a full and complete test of
all your memory in only 3 hours…let it run overnight, at the very least!

–
natural_pilot

7

peeyushd wrote:

> I have tried Failsafe setting which includes acpi=off and I have tried
> pci=nomsi also but the problem still persists.

The message from kernel panic seemed to indicate something wrong
with “clocksource”:

-Kernel Panic - not syncing:Attempted to kill init!
clocksource tsc unstable (delta=xxxxxxxxxxx ns)-

So… you can try passing some parameters related to “clocksource”.
I.e, “clocksource=hpet” or “nohz=off”.

Greetings,

–
Camaleón

8

[QUOTE=natural_pilot;1999963]
if you put your Live CD in, and boot from it, will it boot up to a
usable system? and, then from there you are clicking on an Install
icon on the system’s desktop?

which Live CD do you have? (is it KDE or Gnome)?

did it come from Software.openSUSE.org, or other?

are you absolutely certain that your install media is valid? (that is,
did you check the md5sum after downloading and before burning the
disk, and then again after the disk was burned? (see
NEWBIES - Suse-11.1 Pre-installation – PLEASE READ - openSUSE Forums)

natural_pilot[/QUOTE]

No I am not able to go upto usable system, it is GNOME, i downloaded from opensuse.org only. Yes i have checked MD5sum of downloaded ISO and burned media.

Regarding memtest86+, i will do the memtest today itself only for whole night.

in between just checking through what Camaleon has suggested.

Peeyush

9

I remembered seeing this error before, did some searching here and on google. Unfortunately, it can be caused by a variety of issues, particularly with older BIOS’s and/or cpu’s. (By the way, sometimes the reason Windows works is because the BIOS authors program a workaround in the BIOS to accomodate the Windows kernel.)

Try each of the following boot arguments, one only at a time:

nohz=off
notsc
highres=off
clocksource=pit
clocksource=tsc
clocksource=rtc
clocksource=hpet
clocksource=acpi_pm

10

Hi

I have tried all the boot arguments that you have specified, but not help. After that I have tried PuppyLinux 4.2 and it installed pretty comfortably on my machine. So if the Linux kernels are same why opensuse is not installing but puppyLinux is working.

Is it fine with PuppyLinux to learn the basics of Linux as an operating system for Desktop and Servers?

11

peeyushd wrote:
> Hi
>
> I have tried all the boot arguments that you have specified, but not
> help. After that I have tried PuppyLinux 4.2 and it installed pretty
> comfortably on my machine.

you didn’t answer my question on whether or not you ran md5sum against
that install media…it could be that the openSUSE disk was
corrupt, but the PuppyLinux disk was ok…

> So if the Linux kernels are same why opensuse
> is not installing but puppyLinux is working.

that is like saying that Win2K Professional, Vista and Win95 all have
the same kernel–clearly all Linux kernels are NOT the same…

> Is it fine with PuppyLinux to learn the basics of Linux as an operating
> system for Desktop and Servers?

absolutely!

–
.~.
/V
natural_pilot /( )
^^-^^

12

peeyushd wrote:

> I have tried all the boot arguments that you have specified, but not
> help. After that I have tried PuppyLinux 4.2 and it installed pretty
> comfortably on my machine. So if the Linux kernels are same why opensuse
> is not installing but puppyLinux is working.

Well, every distro applies its owns patches to vanilla ‘stock’ kernel, so
not all kernels are just “the same” :slight_smile:

> Is it fine with PuppyLinux to learn the basics of Linux as an operating
> system for Desktop and Servers?

PuppyLinux is main focused to play with old hardware (which usually have
less resources -cpu, ram- and less requirements).

Fine for desktop and servers? well, that will depend on your needs. For the
basics, I think yes.

Greetings,

–
Camaleón

13

>> Is it fine with PuppyLinux to learn the basics of Linux as an operating
>> system for Desktop and Servers?
>
> absolutely!

i’ve thought more about your question and my answer…and need to modify:

if you want to learn the basics of Linux as a server, then Puppy is
gonna be pretty good for you…

if you want to learn the basics of the command line interface, the
‘guts’ of the system, the file system, administration, the ‘language’,
maybe do some scripting, manually edit some config files, do some
programming and those kinds of things then you will be VERY happy, i
think…

but, if you want to learn the basics of wildly rotating 3D cubes
and/or next months cutting-edge, packed with CPU cycle wasting
eye-candy of a KDE4.4 desktop (or ANY KDE desktop), or the Gnome
desktop i do NOT know…i kinda doubt puppy comes with KDE or Gnome…

so, installing Puppy to learn the basics of ALL Linux desktop
computing would be kinda like installing Windows 95 in order to learn
the basics of Windows 8…it ain’t work out too well…

well, maybe i don’t know what i’m talking about…i just looked at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puppy_linux to see what window manager
they use (instead of KDE and Gnome) and what do i see: a rotating 3D
cube…

but, it ain’t running on KDE but rather something called JWM (Joe’s
Window Manager) read about it at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JWM

both Linux AND Wikipedia are wonderful!!

BOTTOM LINE: as you use, read about and learn Puppy, eventually you
will probably stumble across the cause of your kernel panic.

–
.~.
/V
natural_pilot /( )
^^-^^

14

Hi thanx guys for you comments

My basic idea is learn about linux as an operating system i.e. how it is organised, how it boots, how one can install/uninstall additional softwares in it, command line interface, an overview of programming in Linux, overall concept of Linux as an operating system. Though i understand every distro changes the way Linux kernel or Linux behaves. Regarding window managers I believe once I will get through of basics I may be able to run GNOME or even KDE on puppylinux or may be I will run openSUSE one day on the same PC.

Once I will understand the basics I will like to understand it as an file server for windows clients or simply a file server, web server, email server, firewall blah blah… which normally you do as a system administrator for small-medium enterprises.

And one more question is my hardware i.e. Via C3 733Mhz 384 MB RAM, 80 GB HDD is not enough for opensuse?

Peeyush

15

> And one more question is my hardware i.e. Via C3 733Mhz 384 MB RAM, 80
> GB HDD is not enough for opensuse?

this official source

http://www.novell.com/products/opensuse/sysreqs.html

does not list “Via C3 733Mhz” among those processors which will give
the “best computing experience” so i do not know, perhaps someone else
knows more??

searching google with this string:
site:opensuse.org “Via C3”
returns a variety of problems on openSUSE, in addition to your own…

and, searching http://www.google.com/linux with the string
“Via C3” problems
reaps 22,000 assorted hits of problems Linux wide…

i skimmed a few of those returns and learned that you should not
expect great performance AND “The kernel can be compiled specifically
for VIA C3 processors.” which is something you may need do…and, i
suppose if there is enough demand the ‘community’ here could off that
as well as the packaged x86 and PPC kernels

give google a try yourself! :wink:

–
.~.
/V
/( )\ natural_pilot
^^-^^

16

peeyushd wrote:

> My basic idea is learn about linux as an operating system i.e. how it
> is organised, how it boots, how one can install/uninstall additional
> softwares in it, command line interface, an overview of programming in
> Linux, overall concept of Linux as an operating system. Though i
> understand every distro changes the way Linux kernel or Linux behaves.

Every distro has its own way to do the same things :slight_smile:

Package management and kernel tweaks are only one of the thing where
distributions differs, but there are many more. I.e., YaST is very good for
hardware setup but it’s only available under openSUSE.

> Once I will understand the basics I will like to understand it as an
> file server for windows clients or simply a file server, web server,
> email server, firewall blah blah… which normally you do as a system
> administrator for small-medium enterprises.

That is another sample about distributions differences. openSUSE is very
well prepared for installing Apache, php, perl, postfix, samba and so on.
Every distro has its methods to setup things and they differ a bit…

> And one more question is my hardware i.e. Via C3 733Mhz 384 MB RAM, 80
> GB HDD is not enough for opensuse?

That processor should not be a problem at all. Well, don’t expect it to
handle 3D effects and such modern features but it’s o.k. for standard use
with a lightweight windows manager and should perform fast with no X
environment at all.

Greetings,

–
Camaleón

17

If your goal is to learn Linux in order to perform SME enterprise sysadmin activities, IMO then Puppy is not the way to go. It runs only in RAM, has its own unique way of doing things, under-the-hood it’s structured much like Slackware (which it was originally based upon), and is targeted at the desktop. Given your objective, which requires much more expertise at the server and network administration levels, I would consider distros which are used by business in your country. Here in the U.S., the Linux sysadmin track is dominated by Fedora/Red Hat, and then probably still Debian. If you can’t get openSUSE working for you, I would give a try with the Fedora 11 LiveCD.

18

peeyushd,

i hereby admit i am wrong–i didn’t realize Puppy is so limited, i
thought it was a ‘normal’ but very small, resource sipping distro…

i therefore suggest you to follow mingus725’s sage advice!

mingus725,

thank you for steering peeyushd right without poking others in the
eye… :wink:

–
.~.
/V
/( )\ natural_pilot
^^-^^

19

Hello

I did read two threads of this computer

VIA c3 2000+ 'Processor
VIA Samuel 'Processor
M789CG v3.0A 'MoBo
I did tried it with the live CD for openSUSE 11.0 and openSUSE 11.1 also with openSUSE DVD 11.1. They did not work.

I have learned to copy one harddisk to the other normaly that is working good but with it is not working: mkinitrd will not work.

I did notice that openSUSE 10.3 netinstall cd will work.
On this moment I have complete installed opensuse 10.3 with XFCE.

The reason why it will not work I don’t know. But on some place I can read not ready for PAE and cx8. The last I knew not exact.

I think this means that the processor have a limited instruction set.

When the installation is complete then the video card is maybe not working.

press ctrl and the alt and f1 key at the same time. Make your self root.
execute the next line
init 3 # Swicht off the widow server
sax2-vesa -r
init 5 # switch on the window server

I did not test it more there this is an old computer.
I do post this there other need this information.
If you want not spent a lot of time to this use a linux who is special for old computer.
I hope this help other people

Romke

20

Hello

When I installed openSUSE 11.2 there are no more problems.

I think for other readers use a kernel higher then 2.6.31 or a real old kernel

Romke