I’m having trouble installing openSuSE 11.1 on a PC. The installation process repeatedly locks up the PC when installing the package kernel-pae-extra-2.6.27.7.9.1.i586.rpm. I can’t move the mouse pointer and the numlock key doesn’t toggle on and off, indicating the system is completely frozen.
I’ve tried several different remedies, but the problem keeps occurring:
- installing from DVD with “installation from images” enabled
- installing from DVD with “installation from images” disabled
- network installation
The system spec is as follows:
AMD Athlon XP 3xxx+ Barton core
2Gb RAM
80Gb HDD attached to primary IDE channel along with a Sony DVD-RW drive
Highpoint Rocket 133 PCI IDE controller with three disks attached (two on primary channel and one on secondary)
During the installation I am specifying a custom partition setup:
the HDD attached to onboard IDE controller has /boot, / (root) and swap partitions
the HDDs attached to Rocket 133 are combined into an LVM setup containing /home, /opt and /var partitions. There will be additional partitions added to LVM once (if!) the installation is successful
I am selecting KDE 3.5 as the window manager and accepting the default selection of packages - just to keep it simple, will add additional packages on completion of installation.
I am totally stumped by this and it’s driving me up the wall as I have spent too much valuable time trying to do what should be a straightforward task.
Can anyone suggest what the problem might be and any potential solutions? Is there any other information I can provide to help diagnose the problem?
Thanks…
Did you check the install media? The installer can do that.
Installing pae-kernel should be nonsense because you only have 2 GB RAM.
Do you have a reason not to install the 64-bit version? Many say 32bit in 64 should work, I know machines where the 64-bit version runs like a charm, while 32-bit wouldn’t.
Personally I would download and install the 64-bit version
Did you check the install media? The installer can do that.
Yes - it passed ok, although it took a few attempts to get the check to run without locking the machine.
Do you have a reason not to install the 64-bit version? Many say 32bit in 64 should work, I know machines where the 64-bit version runs like a charm, while 32-bit wouldn’t.
It’s a 32 bit CPU - a 64 bit version won’t work. As it happens I already have a 64 bit install DVD which I used on my laptop. When I tried to use it on this system YAST objected on the grounds mentioned previously.
Further update:
I tried installing with the basic kernel (kernel-default-base-2.6.27.7-9.1.i586.rpm) and that causes the installation to lock up as well. Is this ever going to work!?
If I had any hair left I’d be tearing it out right now!
If the machine keeps locking up i recommend to check the memory with memtest.
Left the machine running memtest overnight. 6 passes completed and no errors found so far…looks like the memory is ok.
Thinking out loud: if any kernel locks up the system, there’s nothing left but hardware. Since you checked the memory and the media, we can count those out.
I don’t know what your connection is like, but can you download a KDE4-live-cd, preferably with a different kernel, first try to run that from CD, then try an install?